


A Proposal by Any Other Name

by Lucidlucy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, How much more can go wrong? much much more, Light Angst, Murphy's Law is strong in this one, No one escapes this fake-married rollercoaster ride; no one, Reylo - Freeform, Road Trips, Slow Burn, TW: Discussions of child abuse, TW: Past Abuse, The duckling and the wolf, This cannot possibly end well, everybody needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 188,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidlucy/pseuds/Lucidlucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey and Finn have been A Thing for a long time now. Since she was eighteen, to be exact. When Finn leaves on a trip to Europe for six months for work, Rey finally chases after him to Dublin to do what he seems to be putting off: propose.</p><p>She wants a family, after all.</p><p>The universe has different ideas. Her flights are delayed, storms hit, she loses her tickets and everything seems to be going horribly. To top it off, she ends up stranded around a rather irritating man by the name of Kylo Ren. It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p><p>-----</p><p>A Leap Year AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ticket

**Author's Note:**

> Story loosely based on the movie Leap Year (2010), which does not belong to me. Just FYI.  
> This will be a reylo slow burn and I hope you all strap in because it'll be fun! Enjoy!  
> Updated aesthetics for [Kylo](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/157049425070/kylo-ren-a-proposal-by-any-other-name-kiss-me) and [Rey](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/157052136470/rey-jakken-a-proposal-by-any-other-name-i-came) are now up, [Full aesthetic here](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/157917308845/proposal-by-any-other-name-by-lucidlucy-on-ao3).

The loft is warm. Not the uncomfortable warm of a New York City summer with no air conditioner sort of warm, that wouldn’t be for a few weeks yet, but of a late spring afternoon where the perfect yellow glint of late day bathes her hard wood floors and exposed brick in warmth, mixing with the heat from the oven where she and Finn had slaved for hours baking fresh loaves of bread for their get together that night. That sort of warm. The sort of warm that makes Rey think of homely comforts and happy memories. Rey smiles.

They are a loud bunch, these people. Finn’s laughter carries raucously, infectiously, through the open floor plan of her loft as Jessika Pava regales them all with the latest gossip at The Resistance, the medium-sized circulation magazine for which they work. Poe’s smile as he takes in Finn is that of an indulgent, patient boss despite him being just as amused by Jessika’s tales as Finn is. It helps that he’s already this shy of three bottles of beer already; he could claim deniability later. Bebe sits in their chair shoveling Finn’s ridiculously delicious lasagna into their mouth, making strangled little noises in all the right places at Pava’s tales.

The dinner was supposed to be Finn’s send-off while he goes off to Europe and India to spend six months writing about its wonders. Poe would follow a week later. They had all squeezed themselves into Rey’s little loft, loaded up the table with good food and better alcohol and got the music playing in the background in the light of the setting sun. Rey sits back and watches with an easy smile on her face. They still have a few hours yet before having to go to bed. Finn’s flight was at ridiculous o’clock in the morning, for God knows what reason, and who even flies out that late? Rey hates the idea of red-eye flights, but Finn is needed on location, and so what is he to do but comply?

So they’d decided to do dinner in the middle of the afternoon instead of their evening plans, and currently all sat around the table discussing the latest bet going around the office: how soon would Lauren Kaydel pop. She’s already two weeks overdue and still keeps going around the office, barking orders at everyone while waddling from one department to the next.

“I bet you it’s no more than two weeks,” Finn puts down his hand on the table with a smack, as if that solidified any betting.

Jessika lifts her eyebrows, “No way, have you seen her? She’s the size of a school bus. Carrying twins is no joke. I give her no more than four days!”

Everyone giggles at the school bus analogy, Poe shaking his head but chuckling around the mouth of his bottle.

“Man I can’t imagine how hard it is to have children,” he pipes in after a long gulp. “Tiny babies running around making trouble.”

“Yeah, if they take after _you!”_ Bebe pipes in, pointing with a breadstick, and that sends the table back into laughter.

“They won’t, Bebe, or are you forgetting I’m gay?” he says, arching an eyebrow. “No babies can come out from that hole.”

Jessika cackles with a pinched nose, Bebe chokes on their breadstick, and Finn goes _AWWWW MAN! We’re at the dinner table!_ But his cheeks have gone a little darker and he’s laughing his head off anyway, and Rey can’t help but giggle even though she’s too busy trying to remember all of it in her mind. This whole moment in its beautiful summer sunset light. Her friends, lit up like golden gods, laughing and having a wonderful time.  

“You can adopt,” she supplies with a grin, “or find a surrogate mother.”

It’s the first time she’s talked and all eyes turn on her, including Poe’s, whose illegally gorgeous face breaks into a shit-eating grin.

“Are you offering? Because I totally wouldn’t mind my kids getting some of your cute genes thrown in with that little button nose of yours.”

She blushes and laughs but her chest aches because she wants a family more than anything. She wants to give her children a better childhood than she’d ever had. Then she catches the look Finn’s giving her, because he’s been there for most of it since she turned fifteen, and he _knows_. He averts his eyes quickly and so does she. They’d been dating for so long now, but the talk of marriage much less babies had never come up. Until—

“Nah! She’ll have cute cinnamon roll babies with Finn! All that melanin and all that adorable cuteness all packed into one. Can you even imagine it?!” Jessika’s excited little chime comes in as she leans forward. Jessika _loves_ baby talk. “They’re going to be so cute I want to _eat them_ already.”

“Whoa, Jess, tone it down with the cannibalism,” Poe teases, knocking back the rest of his beer. Bebe, however, has been staring between Finn and Rey, carefully nibbling on a piece of bread.

And in true Bebe form, they chime in in the worst way possible, unaware that it’s a _really_ sensible topic.

“They need to be married first, right, Poe? Before they have the babies,” they affirm, all innocence, and everyone stops. Poe’s brows furrows and he opens his mouth.

“Well, I mean, it’s 2016, I don’t think they _have to_ be anyth—“

“Why aren’t you married yet?” Bebe asks, this time addressing Rey.

A pin could be dropped and it would be as loud as an orchestra, except perhaps maybe for the sound of Finn choking on his drink.

Rey’s face turns about three different shades of red and she clears her throat, looking between Jessika and Poe before her eyes settle where she had avoided looking. Finn.

He’s clearing his chest by thumping it repeatedly and his eyes are teary, but he notices her watching him desperately and his lips give this weird little upward twitch. It’s not a happy twitch, or an amused twitch, it’s that smile that’s torn between a grimace and a sympathetic frown. Rey clears her throat.

“Uhm, I—“ she begins, and thankfully Poe has the tact to intercept.

“Really, Bebe, talk about subtlety. That’s their business…”

Bebe isn’t ready to drop it though. And neither is Jessika, who, after years of putting together the wedding section of The Resistance, has taken to living vicariously through everyone who’s getting married or having babies. She flips her gorgeous hair over her shoulder and tilts her head, resting her chin on the back of her hand as she pushes a bowl of bread further away with her elbow, staring straight at Finn.

“Yeah, _Finn_ , why _aren’t_ you two married already? You’ve been together since forever and a lifetime ago. Seriously you’re all but married in name: you’ve been dating since you were eighteen, sharing a home since nineteen, and you even work at the same place. I expected some cute babies by now.”

Oh but it’s all gotten super uncomfortable, and when outnumbered two to one, Poe shrugs and basically buries his mug into his drink, refusing to get between Jessika ‘The Wedding Expert’ Pava and Bebe. Rey shoots him a glare and he shrugs again, though this time it’s apologetic. Never let a man between a woman set on match-making a la OKCupid style and Bebe, whom didn’t know the concept of social boundaries if it bit them in the nose. He would not win.

If Rey is looking uncomfortable Finn looks ready to let the floor open up and swallow him. He clears his throat uncomfortably and pushes a napkin aside.

“Well, we’re…” he starts, and his voice shakes a little on the _we_ , and Rey arches an eyebrow but says nothing, “It’s not the right time yet.”

All eyes turn to Rey. She pastes on a smile and agrees, clutching her own napkin under the table in a tight grip.

Finn knew how much she wanted a family.

Finn, who has been there for her since she’d turned fifteen, who watched her bounce horribly through the system, then had watched her end up in Unkar Plutt’s greasy hands. Finn who knew that the only reason they have this very same apartment is because Unkar Plutt is also the landlord, and as soon as he’d had enough to rent it, he’d taken her out from under Plutt the second she aged out of the system. Finn knew. He’d always known how much she wanted to have a family of her own, a place to belong, a place away from here. A place that was hers.

He’d always tell her she belonged with him, and somehow that reassurance had turned into dating. Dating had turned into sleeping together, and they’d remained in this same apartment for going on four years because rent in New York City is ridiculous, and Plutt is giving them a discount on the excuse of _having his little girl close_. Finn knew. And because of their situation, him as a writer and her as a freelancer, it had never been the right time.

Jessika gives them a glance that says she’s not buying it, and Bebe’s just looking at them curiously but without any sort of judgement. Poe has decided that his beer bottle contains the secrets of the universe. It stays tense for a breath longer before Rey finally gets up the courage to talk.

“Dessert anyone?”

And suddenly there’s a sigh of relief from the men, Finn piping in that he’s been waiting for cannolis all day, and Rey takes the diversion to wander off into their tiny but well equipped kitchen, pulling the cannolis from the fridge and using the solitude to compose herself. She takes a deep breath, her hand resting on her stomach, then closes her eyes and counts. One. Two. Three.

She makes it to ten and opens her eyes, then glues a happy, charming grin on her face as she returns.

“Fresh made!”

Everyone starts showering her with compliments over the dessert and she laughs.

“Yes, I am super skilled at baking. So skilled that it only took a call to that authentic Italian restaurant two blocks away and BAM! Delicious sweets.”

The conversation devolves into giggles and playful jabs, and it’s as though the marriage and baby talk had never happened. Everyone takes their leave when Finn finally looks at the clock and very apologetically informs everyone that he has to go to bed, because one o’clock will be here before they even know it. Rey takes care of the dishes and Finn kisses her on the cheek for being so sweet, and by the time Rey comes into the bedroom he’s already passed out on their large king-sized bed. She sighs, a soft smile coming up to her lips as she pulls off his shoes. He hadn’t even bothered to take them off before falling face first into a pillow. She sets them aside then slowly makes herself ready for bed, watching the dimming light coming in through the windows.

Rey rubs the heel of her hand into her forehead with a sigh, finally letting out a deep breath she had been holding all night.

She should let it go. She knows she should. It’s stupid really. But she can’t. Bebe’s _why aren’t you married yet?_ Keeps rattling around her skull, and Rey would have _never_ thought herself the kind who would be waiting on _any_ man to propose, to sweep her off her feet and carry her to her happy ever after, but damn it she’d never had a happy ending up until Finn arrived, she’d never had a secure future, and… _well._ She feels stupid for thinking that marriage would provide her that, but Finn is _perfect_. He is perfect in every sense of the word.

He’s the sort of guy who would call in sick if _she_ was sick, only to stay home and baby her. He’s the kind of guy who planned romantic dinners for no reason, and ended them on the couch watching chick flicks and being just as invested in them as she was, and would totally watch that k-drama without any sense of shame over crying his eyes out right along with her at the super sad moments. He’s the sort of guy who’d wrap her up into a hug and shower her in kisses in the middle of a lazy afternoon, and tell her she’s beautiful, and how lucky he is to have her. He’s the kind of guy who made sweet love to her as though she were made to be worshipped.

She looks at him, snoring lightly into the pillow.

Finn is a good man.

She’d let it go. They’d be ready eventually. Eventually, it would be the right time.

She grabs her macbook pro from where it rests under her side of the bed and powers it up because she still can’t sleep, and after a moment of scrolling through reddit and Making Star Wars, and finding absolutely nothing new or of interest, she hops on Facebook. There are photos of Bebe, Jessika and Poe at a bar, the phone held front-facing by Poe’s long arm as they all give cheesy smiles into the camera. The flash is on and there’s darkness behind them but she notices some purple blue lights in the back, and they’re all holding those cheesy red cups full of cheap beer. A nightclub. Rey grins, they’d taken the party on the road.

Good for them.

She keeps scrolling.

It proves to be a mistake.

There are pictures of her coworkers, more specifically, of the ever pregnant Kaydel cuddling with her husband. and some of her high school friends she never talks to anymore.  And they all seem to already be having the picture perfect lives, flashes of engagement rings blinding her eyes even through the screen, and pictures of cute little toddlers running around with sweet messages like:

_Carly writes…_

_“Running around trying to chase each other with the fake sabers daddy bought them during their trip to Disney. Haven’t been able to put them down in two weeks! Aren’t they wonderful!”_

Rey slams the screen down and shoves the laptop back under her bed. She lands on her soft pillow with a huff and crosses her arms over the duvet, staring at the ceiling with a frown.

Seriously? When had she turned into the girl that would pine for marriage and babies? She was only twenty three! She should be out with Poe and Jessika and Bebe getting shit faced, not sitting here throwing side glances at her partner wishing the man would do something about it. But after a life of having nothing she wanted so much more. Was that irresponsible of her? Naive or stupid? Rey worries at her lip.

Then she turns on her side and looks at Finn before closing her eyes. She needed sleep. One o’clock will be approaching soon.

It goes in the blink of an eye.

There’s a hand shaking her and Rey grumbles. Finn plants a soft kiss on her temple.

“Come on, sleepy head, I have to make it to the airport.”

They only have the one car, so Rey would drive him then drive herself back. That was the agreement. She nearly tells him to just take the car and she’ll take cabs forever until he’s back, and perhaps she _does_ say it because Finn is chuckling.

“You could never afford that. Come on, Peanut, time to get up.”

Rey sits up with a sigh and rubs her face. Finn’s already dressed up as he walks around and starts shoving stuff into his suitcase. It’s literally his whole wardrobe. He’ll be gone for six months. The idea sours her stomach. Six months without him. Six months without Finn to come home to, or to help her through rough patches, or to act as a shield between her and Plutt.  She almost wants to ask him to stay. She wouldn’t be so worried if Poe wasn’t joining Finn in a week, well and truly leaving her with no back up in case Plutt got handsy again. He’d tried a couple of times.

He comes around and gives her another kiss as if knowing what she’s thinking about.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” he reassures her. Rey grunts but gets up and goes to brush her teeth and get ready, then grabs her wallet and her keys.

Twenty minutes later they’re weaving through the thankfully mostly deserted streets of Manhattan and off towards JFK. John F Kennedy airport was huge, and also literally the main airport to New York City, as all New Yorkers knew. La Guardia was the sadder little cousin to JFK, really. Which meant that soon enough traffic would start piling on.

The drive is quiet. She catches Finn looking at her every once in a while through the rearview mirror, a worried look on his face, but she keeps her eyes on the road, trying not to think too hard on this. Once she pulls up to drop-off, she finds a place to park at the entrance along the curb and unbuckles her seatbelt, and Finn pulls her into the warmest embrace, as if making up for the six month absence, holding her there until she needs air.

“I’ll miss you, Peanut,” he murmurs into her neck, and Rey sighs and hugs him tighter. Air can wait. She’s never been this far from Finn since she was a teenager and he’s not even gone yet.

“Come back soon, alright?” she whispers in return, her hands fisted into his tan leather jacket. He nods, then plants a soft kiss on her temple and pulls away. He unbuckles and gives her the dazzling smile she’s always associated with him.

“Back in a heartbeat.”

One last soft peck on the lips and he’s gone, and Rey’s staring at him from her driver’s seat until she can no longer see him past security check, letting out a shuddering breath. She sits at drop-off for way too long. So long, in fact, that a van comes up from behind and honks obnoxiously at her to move. A whole family looking ready to be dropped off. With a sigh, she pulls her car into gear and makes for the exit, thoughts on the dinner again.

It keeps bouncing around in her head and she grunts, turning on the radio to max to forget against the noise. Except the universe hates her when Livin’ on A Prayer comes on.

_She says, we’ve got to hold onto what we’ve got._

Why had she let Bebe and Jessika get to her? She should know better. She’s known for a long time they weren’t ready. It shouldn’t make a difference.

_It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not._

But it _does_ make a difference.

_We’ve got each other and that’s a lot for love._

She accidentally misses the fact that she cut someone off and somebody honks angrily at her. Rey curses, speeding up enough to give the person enough room to accelerate with an apologetic wave of her hand.

_We’ll give it a shot._

Rey stares at the airport as she drives by.

_Whoa, we’re halfway there._

She bites her lip.

_Whoa, livin’ on a prayer._

She thinks back to all the damn pictures on Facebook and grunts. Everyone else had gone after what they wanted, and here she was putting what she wanted on a plane to Europe, not to see him again for six months. She can’t let him go like that. Not without saying something.

_Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear._

With a huff, she turns the car around. She finds the nearest exit and heads right back to the airport.

She hadn’t made up her mind. Not when taking the exit, not when finding parking, not when pulling up to the airport breathless from running. She doesn’t know what she’ll say to him. She’s acting on instinct and pure adrenaline and it’s not like her and damn it, she’ll _do it anyway._

When she finally reaches the gate, the plane’s boarding.

No. No, no no no.

She makes her decision.

She runs back to the counter.

“I want a ticket for that plane!” she points to the big flight times display, and the lady at the counter gives her a strange look.

 _“I’m sorry_ , ma’am, but that plane is readying for departure,” the woman offers apologetically, “perhaps I can schedule you for another one?”

“No! My boyfriend’s aboard that plane. I need to get to him. I have things to tell him, you see?” she argues for her case with a near pleading tone. The woman gives her a sympathetic look, the sympathetic look of someone who’s seen far too many love stricken people trying to stop planes like in the movies, not knowing that captains and airlines were sticklers about departure and arrival times.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I could ask them to stop so he can come out…”

Rey shakes her head.

“No, he has to get to Dublin. But if..could I just..?” she asks. The lady shakes her head.

“No, I’m sorry.” Then she looks at the screen. “Sorry, ma’am. Even if I could help…” She points to the big flight times display.

The plane’d been marked as departed.

Rey sags.

She’d missed him.

The counter lady taps her on the shoulder. “Ma’am?”

She’d decided.

If it wasn’t the right time, she’d _make_ it the right time. Finn kept putting it off, so she would do it for him. She’d propose.

Rey turns robotically.

“Are there any flights going there right now?” she asks. The lady shakes her head, then noticing that Rey isn’t looking, speaks her negative outloud.

“No, ma’am. These are red-eye hours. The next one leaving for Dublin won’t be until eight in the morning.”

Rey takes in a deep breath, then opens her wallet. She looks inside. She only brought her keys with her, her phone, and her wallet. In it were her ID, her passport -- which she'd always kept in her wallet in hopes for a just-in-case impromptu romantic trip with Finn, she thinks wryly --  a ticket to a long-over broadway musical, rubbed at the edges and fading, ten dollars and some change, a debit card and her credit cards. Rey didn’t have much in her savings account. Oftentimes she was paycheck to paycheck as it was.

She sets her lip and whips out her credit card.

“One seat, please.” She requests.

The counter lady didn’t think she’d go through with it, probably because nobody _ever_ went through with it, but then she sees Rey’s stern set to her jaw and nods.

“That’ll be three thousand dollars round trip,” she says, bringing up her screens.

Rey nearly falls on her face.

“ _How much?”_ she manages to croak, also passing along her ID and passport.

“It’s a last minute trans-atlantic flight, ma’am. Or would you like a one-way?”

Rey swallows. She _could_ buy a one-way ticket, but her sense of self preservation tells her a round trip ticket would be the best thing she could hope for. She shakes her head and accepts the round trip ticket, passing over her card. The ticket alone maxes it out. The most she has on it is about ten dollars after that, and she internally aches at spending that much money.

The counter lady gives her a soft smile as she passes Rey her brand spanking new three thousand dollar plane tickets.

“Nothing to check in?”

Rey shakes her head quietly.

“Gate E3, off to your left. Good luck, ma’am. I hope you get to him in time.”

Rey looks at the lady and bites back on the anxiety crawling up her chest. She nods and gives a thank you rather mutely, before going through security. She’s not wearing much. Sweatpants and a t-shirt, because she had intended go right back to bed. They usher her through and soon enough she finds herself at Gate E3, with literally nothing but her keys, a cellphone, and a wallet with one maxed out credit card already. She sighs, looking out the dark windows at the sprawling space where silent winged metal creatures sit.

This is stupid. This is _so_ stupid. And she’s doing it.

Rey plops herself on an empty chair. The whole place is deserted except for a few people walking about, staff and tired flight attendants, and a few civilians wandering around even though everything’s closed for the night.

She curls up on a chair, knees to chest, arms wrapped around, and drops her head onto her knees, finally exhausted.

It’s so stupid.

But her options would be to go back to an empty apartment and a lonely life for six months and a creepy landlord who also happened to have been her foster father for a really uncomfortable four years. No.

She’s going to Dublin.

She’s going after Finn.

She’s doing this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter!  
> Lyrics are from Livin' on a Prayer, by Bon Jovi.
> 
> Thank you to the lovely [EjBlaKit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EjBlaKit/pseuds/EjBlaKit) for indulging me and reading through this/betaing this work!


	2. Clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: A couple of f-words get dropped, so just a heads up for the innocent eyes.

The headache throbbing behind his eyeballs is threatening to overpower him.

The second the airplane descends and they’re allowed to unbuckle — all five of the passengers aboard the 737 Delta red-eye flight, that is — Kylo shoves himself out of his seat and reaches for his leather duffel bag, digging around in its contents. After a second too long of searching, his large hands finally wrap around a hard leather case, soft under his touch, and he yanks it out in a heartbeat. A moment later the aviator shades are out of their usual housing and propped on his prominent nose. The shades dim the lights beating against the strain of his eyes and he lets out a sigh of relief.  

 _Fucking finally_.

A leggy blonde flight attendant is waiting in front of the doors as he exits first class, blessedly the first one because the last thing he wants to do right now it take half-steps behind some lagging passenger all the way to the exit, and she gives him a dazzling smile. Leggy, as he’s quickly thinking of her, extends her hand out to him to shake. It’s not a courtesy often given to passengers, _ever_ , and he notes the small slip of paper she leaves behind with a purred ‘ _Thank you for flying with Delta_ ’ once he reluctantly takes her hand.

He stares at it. A phone number.

What she’d really meant was _thank you for letting me ogle you the whole five hours it took to get from Los Angeles to New York. Call me._

He gives her a curt nod and nothing more, towering past her and out through the ramp, immediately dropping the slip of paper in the nearest trash can.

Thank God for tinted shades. The lights of the gate where he’s about to sit himself to wait for far too long are so bright he’d scream if not for the small amount of coverage the Ray Bans were providing, and even then, he’d had to squint. Long fingers run through already mussed hair and he looks around. The place is pretty much deserted.

He checks his ticket.

Gate E3. Sure. All the way across the fucking airport. Of course they’d drop him off as far away as humanly possible.

 _Silver linings, Kylo_ , he reminds himself, _at least you get to stretch your legs. At least you’re not in fucking LA right now, dealing with Snoke and Hux’s fucking face._

The strap of his duffel bag goes over his head, he checks to make sure his wallet’s in his back pocket, and he digs out headphones from the front one along with his phone, then hesitates. To get to the music he has to turn the phone on. To turn the phone on meant notifications. Notifications meant potential missed calls and a barrage of messages.

He shoves his phone back in his pocket, right along with his headphones. Music could wait.

Languid, long steps aided by automated, moving walkways see him closing in on E3 twenty minutes later. There’s no rush. Most of the airport is entirely empty at two in the morning, with only a few cleaning staff running around getting their work done before the rush of early morning 7:00AM flights. There were still at least three hours of peace and silence. Kylo pulls a long, white ticket tab out of his pocket and checks the time. His flight would be leaving at 8:00am, the earliest one to Dublin. He grunts.

 _Silver linings, Kylo_ , he reminds himself. _At least you’re stuck at an airport for six hours rather than stuck at Snoke & Sons, dealing with stupid lawsuits. _

The whole thing had become a mantra since he’d walked away in a fury from Snoke’s office less than twenty hours ago. It was what kept carrying him, one step ahead of the next, through the crowded streets of LA, into a cab home to pick up his valuables then off to LAX. On the way there he’d ranted into the phone at a petrified part-timer who was unfortunate enough to be working the evening shift when Kylo called to put his lease on hold.

 _“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t just break a lease half-way through the year. Summers are hard times for finding tenants. Everyone’s already moved in in the early spring. I can always call the manager…”_ She’d squeaked on the line.

Kylo had refrained from tossing the phone out the moving cab, instead punching the empty backseat next to him. The cab driver had given him a nervous glance, as if Kylo was one of those creeps who suddenly turned violent and murderous on unsuspecting cab drivers in the middle of the night. At that moment, he might have been.

“Fine, fine. Put me through to your manager— actually, no, call the god damn owner of the complex. Yes, yes. The owner. Did you not hear me? I don’t care that he’s on vacation! Do it _now!”_ He barked, his voice rising the longer he’d been kept waiting. The poor girl had jumped as if he’d asked how high, and ten minutes later the owner was being put through the third line, greeting him from somewhere in the sunny Bahamas.

 _“What can I help you with, Mr. Ren?”_ the man he’d never met had asked, all professionalism even with the obvious tropical music playing in the background. Kylo stared out towards the bay, dark except for moonlight and traffic over the bridge; the cab driver finally decided to just mind his own business.

“I’m your tenant in loft A4, though I’m sure you’re aware of that by now,” He bit through his teeth, trying to stay as calm as humanly possible despite the shit show he’d exited not but an hour ago still boiling at his nerves.

 _“Yes, yes, of course. You’re one of the lawyers with that giant law firm, right?”_ the man asked, all cheer.

“Partner.” Kylo corrects, “And, I _was._ I’m calling to put my lease on hold.”

He’d exited his place with barely a plan in mind, an old birthday card that had held a promise made eons ago, and enough clothes to cycle through a month or so before having to repeat outfits. He propped the phone between ear and shoulder as his hands came down to yank at the sleeves of his well tailored suit jacket, having long traded perfectly pressed work slacks for comfortable jeans.

_“I’m sorry, but like Raquelle had mentioned, we don’t often hold leases mid yea-“_

Oh, but Kylo could _scream._

“ _FINE!_ ” he shouts, then takes a deep breath, “Fine. Then I’ll buy the stupid place. Charge my goddamn bank account. You have my information on file, correct?”

He heard stuttering through the phone, a half choke of a man who didn’t expect Kylo to basically drop four million dollars so casually on an apartment he wouldn’t be living in any time soon. His tone immediately changed from placating to delighted and awfully subservient.

_“Oh but of course, Mr. Ren! That would be our pleasure! I’m so glad you’ve considered us to become your permanent home.”_

Of course it would be his pleasure. He’d just been given a rather large influx of cash. Kylo rolled his eyes. _“When are we clear to do the transaction? I assume you’d like to make sure you have the fund-”_

“Now. Now, Mr. Whoever You Are. Just make sure I have a place to live in still when I come back.” Kylo clipped then immediately clicked the call off while the man was still mid-sentence, showering all sorts of niceties and congratulations on the new acquisition on Kylo.

And just like that, Kylo had basically left everything he’d worked for and picked up a plane ticket to Ireland, like the moron he was. He’d let temper get the best of him, _again_. He’d managed to basically give his parents a quick, strained call letting them know he was leaving the country — _for a while_ , he’d said, when they pressed about how long — and hopped on a connecting flight to New York.

He turns the ticket around. This is either his ticket to freedom, however temporary, or his ticket to a colossal mistake.

With another gruff sigh and yet another nervous run of fingers through hair, he approaches gate E3. It’s empty save for a single small form curled up on a chair, obviously sleeping. He looks at it… A girl, by size and the long curls spilling out of a messy half bun. He dismisses her out of hand and finds a seat in the corner of the seating area, where he can keep an eye both on the gate, the hallways, and the ramps currently bathed in darkness. He drops his bag unceremoniously on the seat next to his and digs out his phone again as he takes his seat.

Still off. Still waiting.

He palms the sleek phone, turning it around over and over in his hand and stalling, then makes up his mind. His options are turning the thing on and facing the notifications in order to get to his playlists, or sitting here with nothing to do but stare at a sleeping hobo teenager. Everything else is closed and it’s only the two of them.

He turns on his phone.

Immediately the beeps and brrp’s of missed phone calls, left over voicemails, and text messages flood his ears. He cringes, the headache he’s been carrying since the previous night spiking. He scrolls:

_Missed voicemail: Katherine P._

_Missed voicemail: B. Hux_

_Missed phonecall: Snoke_

_Text message from Katherine P: Honey, come back. I know we can all work this out, really. It wa…_

_Missed phone call._

_Missed phone call._

_Missed voicemail._

The list goes on for a while.

Kylo closes his eyes and lets the pings and noises finish out their incessant drilling into his temple until they exhaust themselves, then finally unlocks his screen and ignores the bright red bubbles screaming for his attention, going instead to his music app.

The headache’s persistent, but at least he can drown out the bullshit going on through his mind with angrier music, because it’s easier than going around breaking things in an airport all the way across the country.

As soon as the music gets going, he rests his head against the wall, earbuds shoved against his eardrums, and closes his eyes, letting the dull darkness behind his shades lull him to a quiet place.

And it’s perfect, it’s literally all perfect, and he’s finally starting to relax hours later when a hand taps his shoulder. He jerks his eyes open, frowning. The hobo teenager is standing in front of him, except it’s not a hobo teenager but a young woman looking disheveled and exhausted. From what little he can see behind his glasses, she must be in her early twenties, with a wide mouth as she offers him a shy smile, and what he thinks must be dirt smudges on her nose. He blinks, then pulls his earbuds out.

“Yes?” he asks when she makes no move to speak. She fidgets a little, then lifts her slender wrists in offering. In her hands she holds some keys, a wallet, and a phone. The phone is lifted higher than the other items.

“I’m sorry to bother you but…” she looks around, “there’s no one else around. Would you be so kind to tell me what time it is? My phone’s battery’s dead.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow. Who goes around without a charger cable in this century? Before he can stop his big mouth, he asks as much.

She tenses visibly, and he allows his eyes to travel down the hall from where he sits. There’s a clock mounted on the wall. He arches an eyebrow.

So, she’s _one of those._  One of those like the flight attendant, who so crassly had dropped off her number in the hands of a perfect stranger, or the teeny boppers who stared in the streets because he was tall.

Not having the time because of a dead battery is a _horrible_ excuse. This is an airport. The whole place operates strictly on accurate timing. There would be clocks everywhere.

“Look, you don’t have to be rude about it—“ she starts, and he cuts her off.

“Normally, I would say it’s time for you to go buy yourself an iPhone cable, but considering there’s a clock _right there_ ,” he points towards the clock on the wall, “Perhaps you’d be better served by looking at it?”

He’s being a complete asshole. He knows it. Usually he can just ignore women like this one and go on his merry way, but after having to deal with Snoke and his _sons_ — or, rather, _son_ , now — he had zero patience for anyone.

The girl before him draws herself up to whatever maximum height she can manage on her tiny frame and glares at him, stiffly squaring her shoulders.

“Thank _you_ , _sir,”_ she clips with faked sincerity, “For being so _helpful_. If I could give you a piece of advice, though? perhaps it’s time for you to go find yourself some manners, asshole.”

She stomps off towards the wall clock and he’s left looking at her retreating back, clothed in a baggy t-shirt two sizes too big and sweatpants dragging on the floor. Young hobo women. Was that what they found appealing nowadays? Still. That had been quite a comeback.

 _Impressive_.

Maybe she hadn’t been trying to get in his pants after all. He gives a small smirk despite himself and shakes his head, closing his eyes and returning the earbuds to his ears. Three more hours until take-off.

Three hours fly by. Hobo woman doesn’t come back, but the area quickly starts filling up. The second he sees how many passengers there are he turns to the counter to buy a first class ticket, because man it’s going to be cramped, and his legs are long enough already.

“I’m sorry sir, but all first class seats are booked.”

Kylo groans internally. He’d been hearing nothing but sad excuses for apologies for days now. He takes in a deep breath and counts.

One.

Two.

Three.

“Alright, thank you, ma’am,” he replies, earning him a dazzling smile that he almost misses as he walks away, turning instead to wait patiently in line as passengers are asked to board.

He stares at the five year old walking up with his parents into first class and glares. That pipsqueak had basically taken his seat.

_Drop it. You’re being stupid. It’s a seven hour flight. You can make it._

He grumbles to himself, realizing that he’s probably starting to go mad with all the talking he’s been doing with himself. Thankfully, at least, the line goes quickly enough.

He finds his row, C3, close enough to the front that the seats still have semi comfortable leg space. Not so bad. His headache has finally started to ease up, so he takes off his shades and puts them into its leather casing in the leather duffel bag, then and shoves the bag into the overhead compartment. He’s on the aisle seat, so that at least he has _one_ elbow with space as he waits for everyone else to come through.

The plane fills up rapidly, and Kylo looks down at his watch.

Seven Forty-Five.

Fifteen more minutes and the plane would take off, and his body would be off this godforsaken state and out of this country and as far away from his previous coworkers as he can get.

Passengers file past until everyone’s seated, and Kylo’s surprised to see the two seats next to him are still wide open. The captain is coming on the system to welcome them all to their flight and tell them about time and temperature, and all this other nonsense about what they should expect mid-flight.

Kylo looks back down at his watch.

Seven Fifty-Five.

Flight attendants pass by, taking their sweet time with him as they ask if he’s comfortable, and Kylo gives silent nods but mostly keeps his eyes glued on the front seat ahead of him. No children near by. Seems like the pipsqueak in first class was the only child. Good. Hopefully there’d be no noises.

Flight attendants keep flowing by and he hears the engines prepping, but there’s no announcement of take-off. He looks at his watch again.

Eight o’Three.

He frowns.

If there’s something he hates, it’s lack of punctuality. They should be taking off by now.

Finally the systems overhead go off and the copilot’s coming on.

“ _Apologies, everybody. Seems like we’re waiting for somebody yet. It should be any moment now. We’re about to give the second call_.”

Systems go off and Kylo grinds his teeth.

His watch reads 8:10. He drums his fingers on the arm of the seat as whispers start going up, people chatting and some wondering when the last person would board, and would they _go_ already? If someone was late they shouldn’t expect everyone else to be held up, a cranky business man huffs. Kylo wholeheartedly agrees.

Then it’s 8:15 and suddenly a body is rushing by hurriedly with whispered apologies every two steps, and he narrows his eyes. There’s a flow of half curls from a shoulder length bob, and a girl comes in in what looks like a floral sundress, arms loaded with…

Are those clothes bags?

He nearly bites his tongue.

They were detained because of some girl’s _shopping trip_?

She’s rushing through down the door and through aisle, hurriedly shoving clothes into a Louis Vuitton monogrammed shoulder bag from the men’s collection, tag still on it, shoulders hunched and firing off apologetic whispers.

Then her voice hits him.

It’s that same British-esque accent.

 _She’s_ the reason their flight’s been delayed?

Kylo curses to himself but sets his eyes straight ahead, glued on the strawberry blonde mop of curls of whoever’s sitting in front of him, determined to ignore her until she walks past.

There’s a tap — more like a painful jab — on his shoulder. Really? _Really?_ It would have to be his luck.

“Excuse me,” she starts, but when he looks up her face sours, “Oh. You.”

 _Well, hello to you, too, perfect stranger with a spoiled princess complex._ He glares at her bag then very slowly brings up his eyes until they meet hers.

“Yes?” he asks, drawing out the question, this time within reason to be entirely annoyed at this girl.

“That’s my seat,” she points to the window seat. Then she points at his knees, blocking her absolutely from passing. “And you’re in the way.”

People on the other side of the aisle and from behind are staring at them from the corners of their eyes, and a few whispers rise up. He considers blocking her and forcing her to go sit elsewhere.

But then he reminds himself that he has a place to be, and the longer he sits here being childish, the longer it’ll take him to get there. He gives her one long look through petulantly hooded lids then sighs, loudly and painfully, as he lifts himself up. He has to nearly curve himself into an S-Shape, his head almost banging on the painfully low overhead lights, and she quickly shoves past him, plopping on her seat and ignoring him as she continues fussing with her brand new clothes. When she finally manages to stuff them into a too small bag that’s meant for work, not travel — yet another thing that sets him on edge, and he’s already hating everything about this person — she plops it in the empty seat next to them.

“You know, there’s an overhead compartment for that.” He clips.

She gives him an icy glare then turns to the window, pushing up the shades to look outside. And the list of annoyances keep piling up.

“Thanks for holding up our flight, by the way,” he gives with total sarcasm, but she doesn’t look at him. He nearly kicks the front seat.

He should _drop it already_.

He gives the stupid Louis Vuitton bag one last angry look.

Seven hour flight.

This would be _fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, pissed off Kylo has a bit of a potty mouth on him when he's mad -- even if only in his head. And he's _mad_.
> 
> This couldn't get any worse. 
> 
> ... Right?
> 
> I can attest that Gate E3 does not exist. It's made up for the purpose of this story. 
> 
> RELEVANT PROPS:  
> 1\. [Kylo's Raybans and hard case](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/146117051850/chapter-2-kylos-ray-ban-aviators-leather-case).  
> 2\. [Rey's expensive A$$ Louis Vuitton bag](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/146116935785/chapter-2-louis-vuitton-damier-icare-bag). 
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read and as always, comments welcome.


	3. Peanuts

Between her first horrible encounter with the jerk currently sitting two seats down from her and her rushed entrance into the airplane, the sun had gone up. It was that bright, crystalline light of early morning as the sun spread over the sprawling New York city skyline and Rey hates it. In that moment, she hates basically everything. She is tired, crabby, and hungry, and her flight would be seven hours long.

She leans back on the headrest of her seat and stares out the window anyway, reminding herself why she is doing all of this.

Finn. She’s doing this for Finn. For a future that doesn’t hang on _‘it’s not the right time yet_.’ 

 

“Ma’am?”

 

This whole trip is insane, she knows. In a matter of… what? Six hours? She’d maxed one credit card and placed almost three thousand dollars on the other, bringing it dangerously close to max-out as well. She’d stalked off after Mr. Jerkface sitting to her left had been the rudest, most insufferable asshole on the planet at five in the morning, choosing instead to wander the empty airport for the next two hours until stores started to open. As soon as she’d looked at herself in a mirror inside a ladies’ bathroom under fluorescent lighting that made her look sick and pale, she’d realized she had brought nothing with her. Nothing except a wallet, keys and a phone. _And no charger_.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

So she’d set about to look for any open stores where she could buy some toiletries, a few changes of clothes for once she arrived in Dublin, and a bag to put them in. By seven in the morning stores were slowly opening up… one here, one there, but they were scattered across the airport and Rey kept conscious of not walking too far from her gate. Her flight left at eight o’clock, after all.

She’d found a few stores with some cute clothes, all overpriced as was the custom of airport shops, but she’d already charged a ridiculous amount of money on one card so buying a few sundresses, a pair of jeans, and three cute tops didn’t feel so painful. She’d walked into the changing room of a store and immediately put on a beautiful floral sundress with peachy coral solids between the flowers that she knew Finn would like. He liked the color coral. She fidgeted with the closure behind her back until she made a knot then sighed. Some of her back was exposed, but it was long enough to not be indecent, and it was summer after all. It’d keep her comfortable.Thankfully she’d had the good sense to shove her feet into her black oxford flats before driving Finn to JFK, which she’d purposely bought two years prior because they were neutral and oxford flats could be worn with just about anything. That saved her having to spend more money on unnecessary things.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

She had then stopped by a convenience kiosk and picked up travel-size toiletries, since those seemed to be offered just about everywhere, and a cheap lipstick a bright shade of red that she knew Finn adored. It was seven thirty. Time to hurry. She needed a bag to put all of this stuff in, then she’d be set.

Except, of course, when it rained it poured.

Nothing that sold luggage was open. Nothing but an expensive looking flag store with a golden LV sign on the outside. She’d seen these in the past, and knew better than to walk in and even _look_ at price tags. She kept walking until she reached the end of the hall. Nothing. No other stores offering luggage were open yet. She walked back down the opposite side, passing the LV store front a second time. Nothing that way either. Rey had nearly wanted to scream, because how come no luggage store was open at an _airport?!_

Instead of screaming, she bit down on her irritation and stalked into the LV store. She _needed_ a bag.

The lady at the counter immediately tried to sucker her into spending more than she ever made in a year on a collection of five hardshell luggages. Rey had laughed in her face because who even had that much money to drop on something as silly and rarely used as suitcases? The sales lady immediately had become cool towards her, but still guided her to smaller selections, much less interested in the sale once she realized Rey had no immense amounts of money. That is, until Rey spotted one that would serve her well for the few items she had. When she read the tag, it was something called an _Damier Icare_ , whatever that meant.

The lady’s little heels came clicking rapidly to Rey’s side, bouncing around the warmly lit, cozy store, suddenly full of charm again now that something in the store had captivated Rey’s interest.

“ _Oh this would be a beautiful choice!_ ” she piped in in singsong. “ _It is, however, a business travel bag meant for men, thou—_ “

Rey had looked up and given her a look, and the woman had the sense to quiet down. What did it matter if it was meant for men? It was a _bag_ , for pete’s sake. The woman changed course.

“ _It would fit the items you carry, however, rather comfortably. And it’s also intended to be a computer bag so you can use it for business later._ ” The woman kept offering uses for the bag but Rey knew she was starting to run out of time and needed to make her decision quickly. She looked at the price tag and nearly swallows her tongue.

 _Two thousand, three hundred and forty dollars_ for a bag half the size of her sturdy military-style duffel bag at home. _What?!_ She’d go look for another bag elsewhere.

“I’m sorry, what time is it?” she asked, giving the lady a side glance and trying to look a lot friendlier than she’d come off just ten minutes ago. The lady checked her dainty little golden watch and frowned.

_“Seven forty five, ma’am.”_

_SHIT._

She had exactly fifteen minutes to get back to her gate, and that gate was exactly about fifteen minutes away. Any longer and she’d miss her flight. She couldn’t miss her flight. She couldn’t go back to her apartment and to Plutt. She needed to go find Finn. Rey bit her tongue hard and opened up her wallet.

“I’ll take it,” she responds, passing the card to the woman, “could you please hurry? I need to be at my gate in fifteen.”

The lady bounded off, happily telling her she had made an excellent choice, and that the bag was 100% leather and, with good care, it would last her a lifetime. Rey tried not to cry over the fact that she’d just charged over two thousand dollars to her second card, leaving her dangerously low on funds. She looked at the stupid thing as the lady took great care trying to put it into a dust bag. Rey had shaken her head and made to grab it.

 _“No need!_ ” the lady quips, and Rey had given a glare she hadn’t intended on but then the lady had sighed and put the dust bag inside the LV leather bag instead with quickly spoken _“I understand, you’re in a hurry. Sorry ma’am.”_

And just like that Rey had found herself bolting out the store with a hurried thank you after taking her card back, about to cry because the last thing she wanted was a leather bag that cost her a month’s worth of rent, but she had a plane to catch. This was for Finn. It was all for Finn.

She had pulled the band from her hair while running to the gate, determined to look at least presentable, and was _just_ arriving as the third call was being given for Rey Jakken.

“I’m here! I’m here! Please don’t go without me!” she’d called, running up to the lady on the microphone. The attendants gave her understanding if slightly resigned looks, reserved for those who had done this a million times to them, before ushering her in. Every single eye in the airplane had settled on her.

 

“ _Ma’am?_ ”

 

A finger jabs into her arm and she jumps, brought back to reality rather abruptly. When she sees who had touched her, she flinches.

“Hey. She’s talking to you,” comes the low staccato of the man sitting beside her.

He’s looking at her and he's clearly annoyed, all hard slants of mouth and eyes as he regards her like a bug. Rey’s eyes widen and look past him to the flight attendant who’s standing with her hands folded in front of her, trying hard to keep a grimace off her professional facade.

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. I must have spaced out,” Rey stutters.

She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she’d _completely_ missed the woman addressing her. Every eye in the airplane is turned to her and Rey swallows, ears turning red, thankful to have them hidden under her hair. The flight attendant gives her a patient smile, all professionalism, even though Rey can tell she’s clearly annoyed. Rey swallows.

“Ma’am, you need to put your bag away, we’re ready for take-off,” the attendant explains, finally.

_Earth, swallow me whole now._

Rey nods emphatically, hair bobbing as she drowns in embarrassment. The attendant, seemingly happy about this, walks away. Rey makes to get up and then bites her tongue. Her fellow passenger’s knees are the length of the brooklyn bridge, and they’re currently blocking her access. He looks at her with an arched eyebrow as she grabs her bag and makes towards him, waiting for him to get up and let her through.

“Uhm, excuse me—“

“You know, if you’d ask me real nice, I might put that bag up there for you,” Jerkface offers, but his mouth is slanted in the most shit-eating smirk and Rey nearly smacks him with her bag.

“ _No_ , thank you.”

He gives her a long look, but then she looks at the passengers around them, all waiting patiently, and his eyes are forced to follow. He shrugs but stays seated.

“Be my guest,” he says.

Ugh! Of course he would! Fine.

She walks towards him, knees knocking together as she tries to wiggle forward, then meets his knees and is forced to turn until her back is to him. A flush creeps up her face when she realizes that her rear is right in front of his face, wiggling in a really, really uncomfortable way as she squeezes her knees past his. It only takes two long pushes, one for each of his knees, before she’s standing in the aisle with a clenched jaw, shoving her extremely expensive bag unceremoniously into the crammed space above head, next to a black leather duffel bag and slamming down on the latch. Then she’s struggling right back through, this time facing the man because she refuses to give him a look at her ass, except the low overhead forces her to crouch forward and she’s brought rather uncomfortably close to him. He simply leans back in his seat and watches her, his eyes traveling from one side to the other as he tracks her eyes on him.

She rushes into her seat and buckles herself up. The attendant that had been keeping an eye on them from the front of the airplane finally gets on the line with the pilot and gives the green light. Rey glowers out the window. The captain finally comes on.

_“Good morning, everyone! Thank you for your patience. It is now 8:20 on a beautiful sunny day and we are ready to get you all to Dublin. We hope you enjoy your flight.”_

Rey sags against her seat, making herself small. Eight twenty. She’d delayed the flight twenty minutes. She steals a glance at the man sitting next to her. No wonder he was pissy. Still, if he hadn’t blocked her access to the aisle she would have been back in her seat a whole lot faster. Another glower nearly escapes her when she notices his eyes on her, a petulant brow raised in a silent question.

Rey bites the inside of her cheek, then takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” she offers reluctantly, tone harder than she intended, “about the delay, I mean. I got…caught up with something.”

It was the wrong thing to say, apparently. He sneers, giving her a once over.

“Obviously,” he drawls, before slamming his head back on his headrest and staring right ahead, pointedly ignoring her.

Rey _does_ glare then. What an absolute—

She forgets all about it in a hot moment because the engines start roaring to a high and she feels the pull of gravity on her belly button as the airplane starts rolling forward, then lurching, and tipping up. She _hates_ flying. Rey closes her eyes tightly and clutches at the arm of her seat, the other hand fisted on her lap and she concentrates on breathing through her nose, then out through her mouth. Her ears pop.

Higher, higher, higher, and her body sinks into her seat as the earth tries to pull her back down, and her stomach does a little lurch that pulls a half swallowed groan from her. Had she kept her eyes open, she would have noticed the broad chested raven haired man next to her giving her an odd look, but she was too busy trying to keep herself from potentially puking, and then—

The airplane is leveling off. Rey takes a deep, shaky breath, and clamps her mouth shut.

There’s a nudge to her thigh. She keeps her eyes screwed shut. Another nudge.

“Hey,” comes the deep rumble from her side. Rey opens one eye, daring to look. Thankfully the airplane is finally settling comfortably into the air. When she looks down there’s a little plastic bottle with a twist off being held under her nose. She opens her other eye and frowns.

“Dramamine,” Jerkface explains, “it’ll settle the motion sickness.”

Rey looks at him then back at the bottle, and takes it with shaky fingers. He could be poisoning her for all she knew, but the idea of settling motion sickness sounds like exactly what she needs. Rey gives the stranger a small nod and twists it open, and it really is dramamine because she’s used to these pills. In her rush, she’d forgotten to buy some. As she’s shaking one out of the container, Jerkface — though he’s lost a degree of Jerk by offering her motion sickness pills — is motioning to an attendant. She leaves then comes rushing back, and he passes Rey a small water bottle.

Rey takes it, pops the pill and unscrews the bottle as quickly as her fingers can work, taking a deep swallow and letting the bitter aftertaste wash down.

She turns to the tall man by her side.

“Uhm, thank you, mister…?”

“Ren,” he replies, taking the small container of dramamine from her hand, his fingers gigantic against her own. “And no need to thank me. I don’t particularly enjoy getting vomited on.”

A few of the passengers are still quietly watching them and Rey’s eyes narrow.

_Are you kidding me?_

“Oh my God, fine,” she mumbles to herself, settling back in her chair, “Heaven forbid you have a decent bone in your body when addressing a stranger.”

He turns to her then, dark, thick brows arching until they’re almost at the hairline of his luscious locks.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“No, no, please. I think I misheard you.”

Rey glowers at him, feeling like that’s all she’s been doing the last fifteen minutes she’s been on this flight.

“Drop it,” she hisses, narrowing her eyes at him.

He gives her a long look, pegging her in her seat with golden brown eyes that are entirely unreadable. They unsettles her, those eyes. They’re the eyes of a man who’s used to people knowing that they shouldn’t mess with him, and Rey finally takes a moment to take him all in. Tall, broad shouldered, a brooding set to his wide, pouty lips. His jaw pops as he clenches and unclenches, seemingly rolling his tongue in his mouth to keep from saying anything.

He takes a long, slow half blink that hood his eyes before opening them again, then he directs his gaze ahead of him, promptly ignoring her. That suits Rey just fine.

They sit like this in silence until the carts start coming around about two hours later. Rey’s eyes pop up, her stomach positively growling at the idea of food. She hasn’t had anything since dinner the previous night at around four in the afternoon, and her stomach clenches in protest. Jerkface looks at her. _Ren_. His name was Ren.

“Would you like anything?” he asks, and she frowns.

“Hmm?” she lets out as a non-answer, and he rolls his eyes.

“Would you like anything?” he repeats, as if she were stupid or deaf.

She nods and he calls the lady with a flick of a wrist, and a short, lithe little brunette pushes a giant cart up to them.

“Peanuts and some sparkling water for me, please. And she will have—“ he turns to her, arching an eyebrow.

“Pretzels, please. And ginger ale,” she says then turns around and—

Her wallet’s in the damn bag. Rey purses her lips, checking her seat twice, before looking up at the cart lady apologetically. She’s starting to hate the fact that she picked a window seat. She’s basically boxed in.

“You know what, never—“

Ren interrupts her, holding up a hand as he realizes why she’s suddenly declining. He digs his wallet out of his back pocket and offers up enough to cover her purchase and his. The cart lady gives Ren a dazzling smile, taking her sweet time with retrieving the twenty dollar bill from his hand and Rey watches in fascination as she purposely brushes his fingers, and his face goes stony, but then there’s that line between being flirty and being creepy and the attendant is forced to pull her hand away. He immediately drops his, holding it out low to accept a bag of peanuts and a bag of pretzels while the attendant fishes around for their drinks.

He turns to her and passes her the pretzel bag, careful not to touch her. She gladly accepts, eyes on the woman by the cart as she pulls out two drinks sweaty with condensation. Ren takes both and passes Rey her drink, immediately ignoring the attendant after telling her to keep the change.

Rey looks at her offered food and bites her lip. She should say something. He had been nothing but rude the whole time, but her motion sickness had abated thanks to him, and he’d paid for her snack when he had had no reason to.

“Thank you,” she offers. He nods, cracking open his bottle and taking a silent gulp. Rey takes in a deep breath. “I’m Rey, by the way.”

Ren nods again, still stonily silent as he cracks open his bag of peanuts. She rolls her eyes, though he can't see it, and busies herself with her bag of pretzels. They sit in silence for a long time as they eat, and when her bag empties she stares at the it forlornly, shaking the last crumbs out into her mouth. Her stomach protests.

Then a second bag is being shoved under her nose.

Peanuts.

What the heck?

“Oh, uh, I— no, thank you,” she turns down the offering as kindly as she can afford to. He'd already given her enough. Ren frowns, and Rey amends quickly. “I’m fine, I promise. Please, don’t let me take your food.”

He arches an eyebrow. “You’re full already?”

No. No she isn't full. She's starving, as a matter of fact, and the absurdity of his comment makes her laugh. Who gets full on a bag of pretzels.

She purposely rolls her eyes, making sure he sees it this time.

“No, not at all. Peanuts are just too large for me.” She pats her stomach.

The man before her frowns a little, then a small smirk slowly unfurls on his lips, and he’s giving her another once over.

“Makes sense, you’re about the size of one.”

Rey’s eyes widen a little. Did he _ever_ not have a comeback? Despite herself, she giggles. The tension that had been clouded over them ebbs a fraction, and she leans back into her seat.

“Thank you, though, for paying. I’ll get you money as soon as I can get to my bag.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, okay. Well. Thank you.” She fidgets with the metallic wrapper of her empty pretzel bag, deciding that the least she could do was to make an attempt at being friendly for his kindness.

“So, what puts you on this plane to Ireland?”

 _Aaaand the tension’s back_.

His smirk drops and his face goes stiff. Rey almost curses. He’d been decent for like a second and she had to go open her big mouth, and by the way he’s looking at her, he obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. Why had her seat been next to _this guy_ of all people?

Rey bites at her lip. She gives him a sidelong glance but he’s making slow work of fishing out his ear buds, jamming them back into his ears, and closing his eyes. Just like she’d found him at the airport at five in the morning. When she looks at the screen far ahead in front of them the time reads five hours to landing.

Rey closes her eyes, burrowing into her seat against the chill of the recycled airplane air with a sigh. If she has to be stuck in this seat, she’ll at least try and get some sleep. She’d only caught like three hours on a hard seat in the airport, and her bones were letting her know. She ached everywhere, and her mind was starting to feel foggy.

If she slept the five hours away, she wouldn’t have to talk to Mr. Jerkface Ren the rest of the flight, or, rather, sit there awkwardly _decidedly not_ talking to Mr. Jerkface Ren.

Sleep slowly takes her.

Her dreams slowly start drifting home, to Finn, to their last dinner together, to the golden light and the laughter, and she’s so happy in that moment. Jessika’s making everyone laugh, and Finn is cackling, and Poe is talking—

_“Man, I can't imagine how hard it is to have— ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing some —running around making— turbulence—“_

What?

Dream Rey frowns at Poe. That makes absolutely zero sense. She asks as much.

Then Poe’s face is changing… his chin becomes narrower, his face widens lightly, his cheekbones move up. His nose, always so regal, becomes long, and his lips take a petulant downturn. His hair starts growing at immense speed—

Rey’s seat rocks so hard that she yelps, startled out of her dream. Her head whips around to reorient herself, still thinking ‘ _what the fuck_ ’ at dream Poe, when she notices long features, a petulant set of lips, and long black hair belonging to the man sitting next to her. And everywhere around her people are gripping their seats.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats and double check that your belt is tightened. We are experiencing hard turbulence. We will keep you updated of any changes. Just take a deep breath and hang in there, everything will be fine._ ”

Her eyes widen.

Turbulence?

This. This is why Rey _hates_  flying. She quickly checks her belt as the airplane rattles, and the sound of shifting luggage above her head makes her hunch her shoulders in.

She hates flying.

 _Hates_ flying.

She thinks she must have started visibly hyperventilating because Ren’s words float to her ears.

“It’ll be fine. It’s just turbulence,” he says. He doesn’t look bothered at all.

Rey swallows.

It goes on for another ten minutes and then the copilot is back on the line.

“ _I am very sorry folks, but it seems we’re headed for a major set of storm systems. Unfortunately, we cannot go around them. We are preparing to make an emergency landing. Please make sure your belt is tightened securely. Should you need oxygen, masks will be dropping shortly. Make sure to secure your own mask first before aiding your neighbor. Attendants will be going around collecting any items that could become airborne immediately. We will be landing in Cork, on the southern tip of Ireland for the night. Please stand by._ ”

Rey stares at Ren. His jaw goes stiff.

…

_What?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a It Happened One Night reference here. Brownie points to those who find it. ;) thank you to the lovely Ms. Qualia for the introduction to IHON and for the last name "Jakken"!  
> There's also a TFA reference, more brownie points for you if you find both.
> 
> And finally, SERIOULY?! This girl can't catch a break. Also, you should all know that Kylo Jerkface Ren is now a thing. 
> 
> Thank you to [EjBlaKit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EjBlaKit/pseuds/EjBlaKit) for seriously encouraging me through this and listening to all my flailing. You're the best, doll <3
> 
> IMPORTANT PROPS:  
> 1\. [Rey's sundress](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/146134853780/ch-3-reys-floral-dress-81-asos-oxford)


	4. Keys

He’d taken pity on the girl. That had been his first mistake. His second mistake had been acting like a brooding jerk every time he opened his mouth, but that was his modus operandi any given day of the week.

The plane rattles around them and all he can see is a pair of wide, wild hazel eyes, and what he’d thought had been a smudge of dirt the night before under his ray bans turns out to be a spread of freckles that had looked a little too endearing when she’d scrunched her nose and laughed. Yet he’d never seen such a visceral reaction to turbulence, and so he takes pity on the girl.

But this is only the latest in a long list of screw ups and attempts at making things better.

She’d arrived late, and he’d been perhaps a little too intense over it, he can admit to himself now, so when she looked about to blush out of her seat at the flight attendant hollering for her attention, he’d taken pity on the girl and offered to move her bag for her, even if he’d also gotten a bit of sick self satisfaction at the way she’d glared at him.

“ _No_ , thank you,” she’d spat into his face.

So, of course, Kylo had stubbornly dug in his heels, because not only was she a spoiled princess but she also had an attitude on her.

“Be my guest,” he’d smarmed, and purposely kept his knees almost to the back of the seat in front of him.

He _knew_ he was being a monumental hypocrite, punishing her for being late while purposely delaying the flight further by being uncooperative. He knew that. It still didn’t stop him from sitting back, lacing his fingers on his stomach, and watching as she made her way up to him. Mistake number two. It had come back to bite him in the ass when she’d turned to wiggle past, the back of her legs squeezing against his kneecaps and her hips swaying right in front of his face in a way that made it hard to concentrate. Kylo had glued his line of vision to her back instead, looking for any safe place to land his eyes on, except her sundress had an open back and he’d gotten an eyeful of taut muscle and clear, tan, soft looking skin under silky slippery fabric. Kylo’s nostrils had flared against his will, and so he’d forced his eyes to travel further up to the back of her head, only to get a peek of a long, exposed neck under auburn locks of hair.

He’d cursed under his breath, but it was too late to stop now. He’d made his bed in this chair. He’d sit in it and deal with it. The girl had finally squeezed past and shoved her bag into the above compartment with more force than he had imagined she possessed, giving him one angry look before working up the nerve to squeeze past him again. This time he’d locked his eyes on hers, refusing to look anywhere else as she squeezed past him. Except she’d had to lurch forward to avoid hitting her head, and he got a good look at the cascade of freckles on her face, the doe-eyed hazel eyes that were looking at him suspiciously the whole time, refusing to look away first.

It had happened in the blink of an eye, and left him breathing in deep through his nose, but then it only went downhill from there when she’d opened her mouth and an apology had tumbled out of her. His brows rose, and he’d looked at her, up until she’d mentioned getting caught up with something. His knee-jerk reaction had been to give her a once over and, once again, be a total jackass.

He wasn’t sure what it was about this girl that just kept getting under his skin and forcing him to rise to the bait. His life had been one of keeping his emotions close to his chest. He _dealt_ in being emotionless in front of a court. His day to day interactions had been built on a carefully cultivated sense of superiority that he had cloaked in silence when dealing with other people. And yet in a matter of six hours, this little slip of a girl had constantly pushed him to react, bringing him down to a level he hadn’t been in since he was sixteen, starting with her witty comeback when he’d tried to brush her off at the airport. It had taken him aback, the speed with which she retorted to his witticism.

But then the airplane had taken off and she had looked like she was about to be ill, and he’d taken pity on her once more. He’d pulled out the little container of motion-sickness pills he kept with him and passed it to her, calling down a flight attendant for water. And she’d attempted civility once more with him and he’d once again opened his big mouth and muttered something about vomit, and the cycle of snark was renewed.

“Oh my god _fine,”_ she’d mumbled, and he’d only picked up on it because of years of having to listen to people mumble their way through a confession. “Heaven forbid you have a decent bone in your body when addressing a complete stranger.”

How dared she?

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“No, no, please. I think I misheard you.”

“Drop it.”

So he had. Against his better judgement, he’d listened to the young woman and decided to drop it, partly because it was a stupid argument to get tangled in when he’d been called far worse in life, and mostly because the whole thing had been his fault to begin with. The next incident happens two hours later, and so he tries _again_ to set things right with this strange girl he doesn’t even know once the food carts come around. She’d been staring off into space, her mind far away from this plane, when the lady had asked him if he wanted anything. So he’d asked her the same. Her stomach had growled so loudly he’d practically heard it beat like a drum.

Everything was going well and dandy when he noticed her fussing for her wallet. Her wallet that was… in her travel bag. Kylo had nearly bitten his lip. Seriously, could she be _any_ more of a walking train-wreck? She was as helpless as a baby. So he’d covered her snack and decided that made them even. Until her stomach growled again.

The rest is quickly becoming a blur in his mind as he watches her try to breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth, and failing miserably.

The airplane rocks around them, jolting hard enough to whip his head back and slam it into his seat. He groans, but the whimper coming from her is kind of hard to ignore even with the constant rattling noises overhead. Around him he can hear people start to pray, as if praying will do them any good against a plane falling from this altitude, and the child in first class has started to wail, but his eyes are glued to the little woman two seats from him who’s looking terrified out of her wits.

The plane is starting to quickly lose altitude, trying to get to ground as fast as humanly possible. The oxygen masks drop. She doesn’t notice, even when one of them falls right in front of her face. Kylo purses his lips as he hears the flight attendants reminding everyone to please assist themselves first before assisting their neighbors. The young woman looks about to faint from lack of oxygen.

With a curse he unbuckles his seat and quickly rises, flopping into the one next to Rey — Or at least, he thinks she’d said her name was Rey — ignoring the screeches from one of the flight attendants for him to get back in his seat and _buckle up right now._ Kylo grabs for the oxygen mask in front of her and fumbles with the straps, cursing the whole time as her face starts turning pale, and it takes too long but finally he’s managed to secure it around her.

“Breathe,” he orders, using his lawyer’s voice, the one he’s used so many times on hysterical clients. When she makes no move to take a gulp of air, he makes a show of taking in a big drag of air through his nose. “Come on, _breathe.”_

The flight attendants are all buckling themselves into their seats, one of them still screaming at him. There’s a bounce hard enough to send him up from his seat and his head hits the overhead lights. He falls down hard with a curse, seeing stars, and finally has the sense to buckle himself in, but his attention turns back to Rey.

She’s looking at him through slightly disoriented eyes but he can finally see the puff of breath fogging the inside of the mask. She’s breathing.

“Good girl,” he commends, making sure she’s buckled in tightly, then checking his own buckle once more as the plane keeps shaking and lifting, then dropping, at nearly alarming rates. They both close their eyes and wait out the storm until landing.

____________________

 

The landing sucking is the understatement of the year. There are a few squeaks and screams as the wheels finally touch down, and it takes longer than usual for the airplane to skid to a full stop because the runways are slick, but finally, finally, they come to a screeching hault. Rey seems to have regained her bearings, though she’s breathing hard.

There’s a beep.

“ _This is your captain. We made it, folks! We will be staying in town overnight and resume our flight once the storms have abated, which is expected to be tomorrow evening. The airline has arranged accommodations for all of you and a bus will be waiting to usher you to the hotel. Please wrap up tightly! It’s cold and rainy out there_.”

Kylo looks out the window past the woman — Rey, he reminds himself — only to see that, sure enough, it’s pouring like the skies opened up and hell let loose. And they were on a runway meant for passengers to _walk_ up to the plane.

Of course.

He feels more than sees Rey follow behind him, squeezing herself through tight spaces frantically to get to her bag, then taking impatient half steps all the way from where they’d sat to the door of the plane. There’s a high wind pushing, making a hollow tunnel sound as it flies into the plane and meets resistance, and Kylo purses his lips when he sees the absolute shit storm waiting outside for him to step into.

“Welcome to Ireland!” the flight attendant who had manned the food cart says to him with a bright, if apologetic, smile. The sides of her hair are damp from standing by the door next to the rain, and he feels just a little bit of pity for the woman as well. Her job is absolute crap. So he gives her a nod and it earns him yet another dazzling smile.

Kylo turns up the collar of his jacket up against the wind and steps down onto the tarmac. It takes him exactly thirty seconds to get drenched. The door to the dry safety of the airport is still another thirty seconds away.

A flash of coral dress zooms past him.

He’s just making it inside when people start pushing him from behind, trying to get past his tall, wide body to safety as well. He grunts and uses his bulk to immediately shoulder his way to an empty corner. One of the few benefits of being over six feet tall and wide-shouldered. His jacket had caught most of the rain and his t-shirt’s practically plastered to his chest. He pries the fabric away from his skin and gives it a shake, water droplets flying, then takes off his jacket and does the same. Thankfully the jacket kept the rest of his torso warm.

“Hey, mind doing that in _that_ direction?” comes a little voice that’s quickly starting to become familiar. The girl named Rey apparently had had the same idea as he. He looks up and finds her looking like a little wet duckling in coral in front of him. She’d had no jacket, and her dress provided literally no coverage against the rain. Her hair’s plastered to her neck and temples and her arms and legs are dripping, and she’s trying unsuccessfully to wring water out of her skirts with shaky fingers. He turns to the left in the direction she pointed and quietly continues shaking out his wet clothes.

He hears her mumbling about stupid rain and smirks.

“It’s not usually like this,” he pipes in.  

She looks up at him with raised brows.

“Oh?”

“Usually it’s fairly mild. We just got unlucky.”

He watches the stream of water pattering to the floor in front of her little shoes. By god, she’s tiny.

“Story of my life,” she grumbles, wringing out her hair next.

The smirk comes back and he stamps it down. He’d been doing that a little too often. They busy themselves with trying to get as much water off of themselves as they can, when a man walks in and informs everyone that buses are arriving to take them to their hotel, courtesy of Delta airlines. Everyone starts shuffling back out, right back into the rain.

The bus is stuffy with the smell of forty passengers all damp and quickly heating up. Kylo squeezes himself next to an old man who’s already fallen asleep on his seat, trying his best to keep his knees from pushing out into the people cramming into the bus. Why were these damn seats never made for tall people? He grunts and plops his bag on his lap, watching the throng of people piling in. His eyes land on a coral floral dress, and he can’t help but trail her as she makes her way towards a seat one row ahead, opposite him, next to a tall redheaded guy that, from this angle, could easily pass off as Hux. He scowls instinctively and looks away, refusing to let a stranger’s vague semblance to his ex coworker rile him into a fury.  

Soon enough the bus is rumbling along. Water flows in sheets down the sides of the bus, clattering on the bus-top, and there’s absolutely no visibility out the windows. Thankfully the noise drowns out most of the conversations in the cramped space to a low hum; he allows himself to space out, eyes on the grayish blue of rained-on windows—

_“What the fuck are you doing?” the words had escaped from his mouth before he could help himself. Katherine’s eyes had flown up to meet his, along with Hux’s. Caught red handed._

_“Really, Ren, it’s not what it looks like,” the redhead had spoken. “We can talk about it. Phasma and I were just—”_

_What happened next had become a blur. Kylo’s fist had connected with a perfectly royal, pale nose._

_“Kylo!” Phasma’s voice had rung, loud and bell like, above the buzzing sound of anger ringing in his ears as he shook out his fist. Decking someone was never as grandiose as they made it look in the movies. For one, it hurt like hell._

—Another bell like voice breaks into his reverie.

“Uhm, I’m Rey,” a voice floats in the stale bus air to his ears from a few seats ahead on the opposite side of the aisle. The bus jolts, having hit a particularly deep pothole, and he hears the bus driver cursing. Visibility was rather pathetic and he’d missed the hole entirely.

Kylo, however, isn’t thinking about the pothole. His ears have trained in on the bell-like voice involuntarily, and by extension, on the person she was talking to. He sneers at the back of the redhead’s crown of hair without realizing it, and stops himself mid grumble.

“Well what’s a beautiful Ray of Sunshine like you doing here in this wet puddle of a country?” the other man asks, and Kylo snorts at the horrible pick-up line. _So original._  Rey doesn't seem to have appreciated the cheesy move either as her shoulders stiffen.

Kylo can’t see her face but he imagines the grimace there.

“I have something to do in Dublin,” she replies non-committally, all jerky words and squared shoulders.

The redhead dismisses this out of hand, immediately going on a long drawn out speech meant to woo Rey even though she's obviously uncomfortable next to him, somehow managing to do so without drawing air between sentences. Kylo catches a few chosen words before drowning them out, but his attention’s immediately snatched again when he hears Rey’s answer to the man’s attempt at playfulness as he remarks on her being so silent.

“Well, you seem to be doing such a good job at talking for the both of us, really. It would have been rude of me to interrupt.”

Kylo smiles despite himself. She really _did_ have whip-quick wit. Her companion lets out an obnoxious laugh that Kylo can read all the way from here, more embarrassment at being outwitted by the young woman sitting next to him than any true amusement at her words. Someone needs to teach that man how to properly flirt.

He rolls his eyes and settles them back out the rainy window, drumming his fingers on his wet jeans. His hair is damp against his neck and the rising sticky heat in the bus is already making this whole experience worse, as if the universe had accepted the challenge to make his life miserable. A stocky man’s stomach threatens to press into Kylo’s face as the bus sways.  He clenches his jaw and starts counting back from one hundred, waiting out the rest of the bus ride.

When they finally arrive at the hotel he basically _bolts_ out of the tiny cramped bus, thanking the skies that it’s blessedly dry inside, wondering if, _finally_ , this trip would stop absolutely sucking. But things never go the way he wants them to. He’d learned that lesson when he had been sixteen years old, and had been reminded every day since. No, things never would go the way he wants.

When he looks towards the counter, a small boy (well, tall, but certainly not by Kylo’s standards) stands behind the counter pushing up a set of rounded glasses on a large, greasy nose. The kid could barely be out of teenagehood.

“What’s your name?” comes the voice of the young man at the desk as he shoulders his way forward. Everyone’s milling about, wanting to just get to their rooms and get some rest.

“Kylo Ren,” he speaks.

“Rey Jakken,” comes a bell like voice with a british accent at the same time.

Kylo’s head whips around to find her standing a foot away, apparently oblivious to his presence until that moment. Her head turns, slowly, carefully, and gives him a startled look.

His lip stiffens to keep the sigh bubbling up his throat from escaping.

Fine. He’d be a gentleman. He’d let her go first. He makes to step aside so she can walk up to the counter, and she shoots him a thankful if wary glance when the young man behind the counter speaks up again—

“Oh wonderful, you’re both here. That actually makes my life so much easier.”

Rey arches an eyebrow and Kylo frowns, his eyes snapping to the boy, quickly glancing at the nametag: Albert. Albert’s adam’s apple immediately starts bobbing up and down rapidly as he takes in a rather wet, irritable Kylo Ren.

“Uh— I mean, my apologies—“ Albert stammers, and the girl by his side immediately interjects while shooting Kylo a death glare. Kylo hadn’t even _spoken_ yet somehow this was _his_ fault?

“It’s alright, uh—“ she looks at the boy’s name tag as well, “Albert. It’s fine. What do you mean by we’re _both_ here?”

Albert, who seems far more excited to deal with a pretty young woman, who looks far friendlier than Kylo, immediately turns his attention to her and offers a sheepish smile. The boy can’t be older than nineteen, and the flush creeping up his neck would be adorable if not for the fact that Kylo’s patience is starting to wobble dangerously on the thread-thin leash he kept on it.

“Well, the airline decided to make it easier for everyone by pairing people with whomever they sat next—..to…” he says, bringing his little green eyes to meet Kylo, sizing him up again. “Because people usually..travel in..p-pairs.”

“You have _got to be kidding me_ ,” he hears Rey hiss.

No shit.

 _Breathe, Kylo. Breathe_ , he reminds himself. _Remember the silver linings._

But he couldn’t remember the silver linings, not when this trip was already turning from ridiculous to insane, and the universe had somehow just decided to stick him with this girl for the duration of it. He’s about to start making demands in a very colorful manner when Rey beats him to the punch.

“What do you mean, _together_ ? Why didn’t they bother to ask us? Didn’t they consider that I don’t even _know_ this man?!” she hisses, leaning over the counter until she’s eye-level with Albert. “ _Find_ another room.”

Kylo sucks in a breath. Ungrateful brat. He’d just basically saved her life on that plane and she’s dismissing him so easily.

Still… she had a point.

Albert turns pale and starts stammering. Kylo guesses he hadn’t expected Rey to have a mean edge in her little body.

“I— I’m sorry, M-Ma’am, I’m just passing the message along—“

Kylo pushes against the counter next to Rey until she has to look up at him and take a small half-step aside with a huff to avoid being jostled, but at least on this she’s on his side. She glares at Albert. Kylo finally manages to rein himself in.

“You heard her. Find another room. Now.” He demands.

“I’m sorry s-sir.. But we’re all booked. The st-storms, you see.. All flights out are grounded…” Albert looks about ready to shit his pants.

“Any other hotels? Branches?” he asks, carefully wording his questions and keeping the edge away as his hand fists around the strap of his duffel bag.

“N-no, sir, I’m sorry…”

If he heard one more ‘ _sorry_ ’ uttered, Kylo would lose his mind. He hears the girl next to him let out a pained, angry sigh, then Rey is piping in again and sticking her hand towards Albert.

“Fine. _Fine_. It’s just one night. What’s the room?” she clips, twitching her fingers in demand that the keys be handed over. Albert sags in relief, grateful that he doesn’t have to deal with this any longer, then starts fumbling for two magnetized key cards. He nearly drops them when his eyes catch on Kylo’s face.

The little pimple faced man drops the keys into their hands, or…rather, hands one to Rey and shoves the other towards him on the counter, before removing his hand and moving a few safe paces away.

Kylo grabs it and stares down at it, brows furrowed, then looks up just long enough to watch a damp girl in a coral dress turning robotically towards him. He arches an eyebrow at her, because, _really._ And despite knowing that instigating her now would only make his life more difficult if he had to share a room with the slip of a girl, he opens his big mouth.

“Shall we?”

Rey looks down at her key, then up at him. She shoots him a glare and stalks away, her little feet clicking on the floors at an angry pace.

He could leave. Seriously considers it. He could go find another hotel. He considers the consequences of just straight up buying a hotel, then remembers he’d dropped a ridiculous amount of money into an apartment he wouldn’t be seeing any time soon. Kylo hoists his duffel bag with a sigh, then starts down the lobby after her.

It _had_ to be her. The girl he’d purposely gone out of his way to insult. Repeatedly.

Of _course_ it had to be her, like some sick cosmic joke. He bites back a curse. He’s being punished for something. He just doesn’t know what for yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In that twist of fate that surprises literally no one, these two are still stuck together. ;)
> 
> Thank you EjBlaKit for literally being the best at finding all my typos and wonky bits of writing and helping me fix them. 
> 
> No fancy props this time. I hope you enjoyed! Comments always welcome <3 ilu all for having been beautiful and leaving all the comments in the last chapter. Kudos if you find the It Happened One Night references.


	5. Sealant

 This had to be some sick joke.

It had to be.

Rey stomps towards the room number marked on her card at a fast clip, cursing   _everything_ in the world in that moment. The dampness of her dress clings to her skin, trying to chafe as she takes hurried steps down the hall. She’s starving, crabby, and the headache blooming at her temple keeps throbbing with every crisp click of steps behind her. Rey sighs.

She tries to focus on the passing numbers of rooms but her mind’s elsewhere. One day. This would only take one day, then she’d be out of that room and on a connecting flight to Dublin, and she’d see Finn and everything would be alright again. She just has to make it through the night sharing a hotel room with a perfect stranger.

She nearly walks past their door when she hears a throat clearing behind her that stops her in her tracks. Her eyes flutter closed for a second. Of course. She takes a deep breath and turns around by degrees, card clutched in her hand.

“Let me guess, 305?” She asks, glancing at the man before her. His eyes land on the door, forcing hers to follow. 305.

“The one and only,” he replies with a small smirk. Irritating, loathsome man. Why couldn’t she just have ended up sitting next to one of the nice ladies she’d seen on the plane? No, it had to be this man.

Then again, it could have been worse. She could be stuck in a room with the over-sharing, over-eager ginger from the bus for the night. At least _this_ man hadn’t spent a forty five minute bus ride hitting on her. Rey takes a small breath and walks forward. He doesn’t move, forcing Rey to come uncomfortably close in order to be able to reach the access box. She looks up at him and arches an eyebrow.

“Do you mind?”

The man — _Ren_ , she remembers — takes a step back and hefts up his duffel bag.

“Not at all, please.”

Rey huffs but punches the card in until the light beeps green, then shoves the heavy wooden door and steps inside, resolutely ignoring Ren following closely behind her.

The room is small and hasn’t been redecorated in what must be at least twenty years, going by the pattern of the wallpaper, but thankfully there are two beds. She nearly sags. Sharing a bed would have just been the proverbial cherry on top of the scoop of shit life had served her over the last twenty four hours. She stalks to the bed closest to the wide windows currently giving her a perfect view of the roaring storms outside, and plops her stupidly expensive bag on it. It’s damp and a little saggy, and she can still see a couple of droplets along the seams.

“You should dry that,” the voice that floats from behind her is deep and low, like the soft growl and rumble of thunder before a storm. Rey looks over her shoulder and arches an eyebrow.

“I’m more worried with drying myself first,” she says, immediately backtracking and opening the small door to the right side of the exit. She flips the switch. The small bathroom is all white, typical of motels and hotels everywhere. White towels, white sink, white toilet and shower-tub combo and curtains and little deluxe size samples of soap and shampoo. It feels a little like walking into a void. She grabs a towel from the metal rack - the only thing not white other than the rim of the mirror over the sink - and immediately starts drying her hair.

She has to admit it’s nice to be inside for once, even if in bad company. She closes the door and takes her dress off, wringing what little moisture is left in it, and sets it over the shower curtain to air dry. So much for a beautiful dress to impress Finn with. She gives the rumpled dress a pained look. She’d have to find a way to press it before she met up with him. There’s only one more large towel hanging from the metal rod. Rey nibbles at her lip. It would be awful rude of her to take it and get it damp as well, leaving her unfortunate choice in companion with nothing. She takes the towel she’d dried her hair with and quickly wraps it around her body, pursing her lips. She’d have to go back out there in order to get clothes.

Rey gives the damp dress another look, hating the idea of getting back into it after her skin had _finally_ stopped feeling like wet paper towels. She counts to ten, takes a deep breath, then shoves the door open.

What greets her makes her nearly drop her towel and screech.

“What are you doing with my bag?!”

Oops. So much for not screeching.

Ren has her bag between his legs and is in the process of rubbing it down. What sort of absolute wierdo—

“I told you to dry it,” he looks up at her and arches a petulant eyebrow.

He has a little piece of fabric in his hands and what look like a tin of ointment sitting on his lap, and upon closer inspection she notices that her bag’s not only dry but a little shiny. He’d been oiling it down.

“Moisture sealant,” he explains, holding up the little rag in his hands then pointing at his own leather duffel bag.

His is already sitting on the floor, looking pristine and blessedly dry. When he returns to her bag, he fingers the damp, unreadable price tag still dangling from the side of the bag and tilts his head. Not bothering to try and read the tag, he looks at her, his brows furrowed as if he’s looking at something or someone he doesn’t quite understand.

“Or do you mean to tell me you paid over two thousand dollars for a bag only to let it get ruined by rain?” he asks, his head still tilted slightly. Rey purses her lips.

She stomps over to him, determined to yank the bag out of his hand, then hesitates. He knows what he’s doing. She doesn’t. They stall there for a moment, him sitting at the edge of his bed with her bag on his lap, her standing smack dab between his long knees, staring at his hands.

“I needed a bag,” she explains, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. She fails.

Ren arches an eyebrow at her.

“So you went with a two thousand dollar bag?” He asks, incredulous, and Rey shoots him a glare.

“You don’t have to remind me, okay?”

Ren shrugs, but his eyes are still pinned on hers as he lifts his hand once more to her in offering. “May I?”

For the second time, she hesitates. Every single one of her valuables is in that bag. Her wallet, her IDs, what little money she possesses right now. But looking at his own clothes and bag, the man’s probably plenty well off, what could he do with her meager belongings?

She gives him a small nod and slowly backs away from his knees, going to the side of her bed and sitting down, towel clutched tight to her chest and eyes pinned on his hands.

They’re so large, it occurs to her, as she watches them engulf the medium sized bag with ease, dabbing and rubbing sealant on the brown checkered leather with smooth, expert fingers. She notices how they don’t seem to have a single callous on them. So, a man used to an easy life. It was obvious in the way he’d recognized her bag’s worth.

“Uh…” Rey begins, sensing the stale air suspended quietly between them turning slightly tense the longer she stares, “Thank you.”

Ren looks up at her and arches an eyebrow. She points towards the Louis Vuitton bag. He nods.

“Wouldn’t want to have to replace it so quickly, now would we?” He asks with a small smirk. Rey frowns, then lets out a snort. _Replace_ it? She could barely replace the strap on it, at the prices she’d seen, much less the bag itself!

Then it hits her. He thinks that _Rey_ thinks the bag is disposable, and why wouldn’t he? She’d stalked towards the bathroom with a flippant remark about getting dry first when her bazillion dollar bag sat drenched and saggy on a cheap hotel room bed. Rey clamps her  teeth on her lip and stares.

Presumptuous little—

She gets up and grabs the bag, yanking it from his hands. He’d already gone over all spots anyway. Ren’s eyes lift curiously, slowly, and give her a hard once over.

Rey follows his gaze, down, down. Towards her bare arms, her bare legs, the hem of a towel that just barely reaches mid-thigh, parting at the corners because the towel’s just a little too small. Instead of standing there and turn twenty shades of unflattering red under his gaze, she immediately turns about and drops the bag on her bed, undoing the zipper with a hard yank and fumbling about for some clothes.

She can still feel his eyes glued to her back, smack-dab between her bare shoulder blades, like an itch she can’t quite get to in order to scratch it, but keeps her own trained on her clothes. Out come a pair of jeans, a cream shirt, and a new set of sports underwear she’d grabbed from a store at the airport. She ducks into the bathroom quickly, Ren’s eyes trailing her the whole time even as she avoids making eye contact, and  she lets out a deep breath when the door clicks shut behind her. She pushes the button to lock it.

Just in case.

Rey tosses her towel aside and strips, changing underwear as quickly as humanly possible to keep away the chilly bathroom air, and throwing on her jeans and shirt. A sigh of relief.

So blessedly warm and dry.

There’s a small hairdryer clipped to the wall. Her fingers wrap around the handle and she yanks it out, staring at it, stalling for time. It doesn’t look much different than the one at home, other than it’s smaller. She presses the button and it whirs to life.

Twenty minutes later she’s stepping out, composed and feeling good about herself, only to find Ren sitting exactly where she’d left him, looking up at her. Her step falters. Had he been waiting for her?

“Bathroom’s open,” she offers, tilting her head towards the open bathroom door. He nods once, but his brown eyes are still on her, slightly narrowed, cold and golden all at the same time. He says nothing, does nothing, just sits there and regards her like a bug.

It goes on for so long that she starts fidgeting, her fingers twitching around the hem of her shirt. Not because she’s shy, but because she’s never been stared at that way. Her first instinct is to throw her shoulders back and glare, but he seems entirely unperturbed by her attempts.

Finally, _finally_ , he takes in a deep breath and speaks.

“You’re afraid of me,” he murmurs.

Rey _does_ square her shoulders, then.

“I am absolutely not scared of you.”

But her voice quivers a little, because the way he looks at her is intense and uncomfortable. Not intense and uncomfortable in the way Unkar Plutt had stared at her, or a million other men as long as she started showing signs of womanhood. No, this man’s intensity was heavy, cold and considering, as if he could read her just from looking at her.

“Then why are you fidgeting?”

She forces her hands to stop, dropping them to her sides like dead weight. Rey says nothing. What else could she say to that? And perhaps saying nothing is the wrong thing to do because Ren’s suddenly moving. Standing slowly, carefully, stretching out his long limbs as he takes methodical steps towards her. His voice drops an octave and his chin dips low as he curls forward, trying to bring himself to eye level with her, hands in pockets. He gives her a small smirk. It’s predatory, and sends a dark shiver up her spine.

Her instincts tell her to run, to turn around and bolt out that door, but the golden flecks of his eyes have her pinned in place as he whispers.

“Is that why you locked the door, then? Because you’re afraid? Afraid of the big bad wolf?” His chuckle is more rumble than laugh, deep chested as he leans forward until his breath is tickling the shell of her ear in a way that makes her own breath catch, and his voice turns into a sing-song, “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? The big bad wolf. The big bad wolf? She’s afraid of the big bad wolf…”

Then he pulls back so quickly it causes whiplash. He’s standing to his full height, staring down at her with no trace of that smirk left, hands jammed in his pockets as he raises an eyebrow.

“I promise you there is nothing you have that I want, so you can calm down already. Alright, princess?”

He sidesteps then and walks into the bathroom in two long strides. Rey hears the bathroom door lock in mockery.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Nope. This would not do.

Rey slinks to her bed and takes her bag, shoving it into the small closet before grabbing her room key  and wallet out of it and stalking out the room and down the hall, determined not to return to the room until absolutely necessary.

She stalks the halls of the hotel, watching as people from her flight walk in and out of small little rooms, all looking far happier and chipper than she feels. Rey grumbles. Of course. It would be just her suffering through this.

The hotel’s not big, however, and soon enough she’s back in the lobby. Albert’s still at the desk. Rey stops, counts to ten to center herself, then takes a deep breath and plasters on a smile. She hadn’t been the friendliest of people when she’d first arrived to the hotel, wet like a duck and with a flaring temper. Her headache’s back and throbbing painfully behind her right eye, but she forces her shoulders to relax, turning on the charm for the teenager who’s noticed her standing there and is giving her a wary glance.

“Albert,” she greets, giving her thousand watt winning smile. Albert doesn’t seem to be buying it. “You know, I’m sorry. I feel awful for how I reacted. It was rude of me…”

He seems to relax a little at that, giving her a tentative smile.

“I just, it’s been a long flight, you see? All the way from New York, and I just... I’m stuck with this guy that I _really_ can’t stand and..” Rey offers, knowing full well that her voice is starting to take a rant-y tone. “Would you be able to help me?”

Albert bites his cheek, giving side glances to see if anybody’s watching her obvious attempt at bribing him with pretty eyes.

“Please? You seriously might be my last hope,” she presses, putting on the most innocent look she can.

Seriously, of all the things she’s had to do in her life, sweet talking a teenager was not one of the things she’d imagine would land on her list. But her only other option is to stay in the room with Ren, and that doesn’t seem like such great idea at the moment. She stares at Albert and prays he’ll take pity on her.

Albert bites at his lower lip, giving her an apologetic smile.

“Ma’am, I’m sure you’re very nice and all…”

“Please?” she begs. Literally begs.

She had been begrudgingly accepting of the idea of sharing a room with a man she doesn’t know if only it would mean getting to Finn the next evening, but after _that_ particular incident back there… she’d beg, murder and steal for a new room. Well, not quite, but… close.

Albert’s lips press together in a tight line and he takes another look up and down the lobby, as if looking into room vacancies were not his job, one he’s perfectly qualified and cleared to do. He turns towards his screen and starts typing in rapidly, and it feels like forever but she lets herself hope.

One room. Just one room.

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. There’s nothing.”

Rey closes her eyes and groans inwardly.

“Isn’t there anyone else I could switch with?” she asks, desperate.

Please, _please—_

 _“_ No, ma’am. All keys have been distributed. We’re full…” Rey’s eyes meet Albert’s as he dashes all of her hopes and dreams with that one sentence and she bites back an actual groan. He smiles apologetically again. “I really am sorry. That fellow didn’t look very friendly.”

You have no idea, Pal.

Rey tries not to slump her shoulders as she nods at him, giving him another small smile before turning on her heel and walking away. She sits at a chair in front of a fireplace in the lobby, waiting out the hours, hoping that he’s asleep once she returns. The lobby clears out quickly and only when the fireplace is turned off does she pry herself out of her seat.

The walk back feels like torture.

301…

…

She counts the doors, slowing her steps the closer she gets, but there’s only so many steps between door three hundred and one and door three hundred and five. She stops in front of the door, gently pressing her ear to it and hoping for silence.

The TV’s on. She can hear the voice of a weather channel man informing the viewing public about the severity of the storm, and how it might extend longer than expected. Rey curses quietly.

He’s awake. He’s awake and the weatherman’s saying the storm might be extended. She pulls herself away from the door carefully, making sure not to accidentally ram into it with her foot or something, and stands there turning her access key in her palm.

She could sleep in the lobby. The couches hadn’t looked _that_ uncomfortable, and she’d slept on worse before.

She nearly turns around to go back when she remembers that her PJs — Finn’s old t-shirt and her sweatpants — were in her bag.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Rey takes a deep breath, turns back around, and shoves her key into the box. It beeps green. Her hand wraps around the handle and she hesitates just a second before turning it and pushing against the door.

Ren is inside, already changed into black sweatpants and a charcoal grey t-shirt that clings to muscles she hadn’t noticed before as he leans back against the headboard of his bed, ankles crossed. His hair’s still slightly damp, falling in soft waves around his forehead and temples, his earlobes peeking from underneath the gentle curls.

Rey chews the inside of her cheek, and he carefully turns his head to look at her.

They stay like this for a moment, Rey with her hand still wrapped around the door handle, Ren with his fingers laced over his abdomen, breathing slowly.

Then Ren chuckles.

“Look who’s back.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, then, would you look at that? These kids just don't know how to play nice.  
> Also, TV weather people are the worst. They're always heralders of bad news.  
> Short-ish chapter, but I hope you enjoy it :) comments and kudos are the ambrosia that feeds the writer's soul, and thank you all who have subscribed, dropped kudos and left beautiful comments. You're the best.  
> Also, last of the It Happened One Night references. ;) enjoy if you find it.
> 
> Forever thankful to EjBlaKit, my beta, for reading my stuff over to make sure it's semi-coherent. MWAH.


	6. Landline

She leaves while he’s still in the shower. He’s done playing nice, he decides as he hears the door to the bedroom slam. He steps out and quickly grabs a towel, rubbing it through his hair and toweling off as quickly as possible before throwing on a pair of comfortable sweatpants and a grey charcoal t-shirt.

When he finally makes it out of the bathroom, hair still damp and exhaustion finally starting to sink into his bones, he gives the small room a once over and finds that she’d moved her bag. He rolls his eyes. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her she had nothing he would want.

He had _tried_ . He had _tried_ to be nice, taking her very expensive bag to save it from a horrible watery death by wiping off the moisture beading on the beautiful leather. After taking care of his own, he’d taken a rag and started sealing hers against water damage. He’d basically been an asshole to her for the majority of the thirteen hours or so they’d had contact with each other, and this was just one more attempt at doing the right thing, he’d told himself.

She hadn’t appreciated it. Still, she’d allowed him to continue after he’d asked nicely and it had been going so well until, again, he’d opened his gigantic mouth. It seemed every time he spoke around her he said the wrong thing, and for a man who’s used to saying the right thing _every time_ — whose livelihood _depends_ on saying the right thing at the right time, every time — he’s starting to wonder if she’s just a fabrication of the universe placed in his path so that he could suffer from cringe-worthy verbal diarrhea at every turn. It’s like he couldn’t open his mouth without it just falling out.

Kylo sighs, picking up the black TV remote and clicking the old television on. He flips through all the channels without much success. What little there _is_ to watch is full of actors with such a heavy Irish accent he has to strain his ears to understand. His finger jams into the channel button, looking for anything to distract him, then finally he settles on the weather channel.

There. His mind flies back to the girl.

Rey. Her name is Rey. He’d have to remember that. It felt silly to be calling her ‘ _the girl_ ’ when he’d be spending the rest of the night in the same room with her. Kylo worries at his lower lip, remembering her standing there in front of him in a towel. It had taken all his self control to keep his eyes from wandering the whole time she was there, until he had chanced a glimpse and his eyes had glued to her like a magnet calling forth metal. He sighs. He should apologize. He’d acted like the world’s biggest idiot despite all his attempts at fixing it, and nothing fixes something as well as a simple apology. He looks at the corner of the TV for the time: 7:30PM. It’s raining outside and there’s very little to do in this little hotel. She’d be back soon enough, then he could apologize and they could just agree to stay out of each other’s hair.

Kylo flops onto the bed and curls his fingers on his stomach, and settles in to wait, making a mental list of all the things he needed to say sorry for: the comment regarding the time at the airport, not moving for her in the plane, trying to pick a fight over a silly comment, talking about vomit when she looked sick — he cringes at that particular one — touching her stuff without being given permission to (even if he had saved her bag, after all); and the latest in the massive list of fuck-ups, ladies and gentlemen, the invasion of her personal space. He flinches harder through every accusation he directs at himself. He had a lot to apologize for.

So he waits for her to return, just so he can have a chance at setting the record straight.

And he waits.

And waits.

And waits.

The weather’s on loop on the TV as the news anchors and weathermen update viewers on the status of the raging storm. Systems meeting at the most inopportune times, grounding all flights for the evening and early morning. Power lines down. Towns flooding. He looks at the clock in the corner of the TV.

Five minutes past midnight.

He frowns, the same part of him that had worried over her lack of oxygen on the plane immediately formulating ten different worst possible scenarios about her absence. He’d give her ten more minutes then go looking for her. He may not _like_ the chit, but she’s still a young woman traveling alone, and nothing good could come of her randomly pulling a disappearing act.

The minutes tick by and his muscles are starting to tense as he prepares to swing his legs over the side of the bed and find his shoes.

Seven minutes past midnight.

Nine.

Twelve.

Then he hears the door over the sound of the television and lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The door slowly swings open and Rey is standing at the threshold looking very unhappy to see him, hand wrapped tightly around the door handle, the other one clutching her room key. Despite himself, he lets out a relieved chuckle.

“Look who’s back.”

Rey tenses more than he thought it was humanly possible and Kylo bites back a curse. He should just swear himself to silence around her already and be done with it. Still, she hasn’t moved a muscle and looks ready to bolt, so he sighs audibly and slowly rises from where he’d rested for hours, sitting on the edge of the bed and extending a hand to her to sit in the small desk chair opposite the beds.

“Please,” he asks, trying to keep his talking to an absolute minimum.

She gives him a wary glance and remains standing by the door, and Kylo rubs his hand down his face then through his hair, mussed semi damp locks.

“Rey…”

She _visibly_ flinches at her name on his lips and he swallows on empty air. His neck is starting to hurt from all the tension building up at the back of his skull.

“Please,” he prompts again, this time moving farther away so that she has plenty of space to walk closer without coming anywhere near him. That seems to put her at ease, as she takes a step forward.

Her eyes are still locked on him, like a scared rabbit ready to hop away in a heartbeat, and he makes it a point to look as small and nonthreatening as he can. He’s known for a long time that his height and body could look threatening. He’d used that to his advantage before. This time, he silently wishes he were smaller, slender, like Hux. Hux didn’t seem threatening to most people. Oh, he _could be,_  there was no doubt about it, but only when he _wanted_ to. Kylo had been a mountain of a boy since the day his teenage hormones had kicked in. He opens his hands, palms up, and rests them on his knees where she can clearly see them at all times. Rey’s eyes travel to his fingers then back up to his face.

“I only want to talk,” he offers.

Rey’s gaze narrows and they stay like this for an eternity, her judging him and him letting himself be judged — he certainly had plenty of things he could be judged for — before she gives a small nod that’s more for her own benefit than his. Rey keeps her distance, taking the small desk chair gingerly.

He lowers his head and runs his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath before looking at her.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. Rey blinks. This is not what she’d been expecting.

“We did not get off on the right foot earlier, and that was entirely my fault. I apologize.”

“You were kind of an asshole,” she admits, leaving Kylo to bite his tongue before letting out the first thing that came to his mouth.

_Filter, Kylo. You have a filter. Use it._

“Yes,” he admits, clasping his hands, elbows on knees and fingers laced together in front of him.

Rey nods, satisfied by his admission.

“At the airport, I shouldn’t have been rude about the time,” he continues, trying to address the first transgression in the giant list he’d made for himself.

“And the puke talk,” she offers. Kylo cringes.“And the not letting me get past the seat, which, really, what was that about? Couldn’t you have just been a _little_ cooperative about—“

“That, too.” He supplies.

“And getting in my face earlier, seriously?!” Her voice is rising and he can tell she’s been bottling up her frustrations for a while. With good reason.

Kylo closes his eyes and nods, counting back from ten.

“And touching my things, which was _really_ inappropriate; you don’t even _know_ me,” she bites, and he finally opens his eyes up.

“I was trying to save your bag,” he replies, shoulders tensing, because couldn’t she just _let him_ get through an apology?

“Well, I didn’t need you saving my bag, or saving anything, thank you very much. And even so, you could have _asked_ like any other normal person on this planet would have—“

“You were in the shower!”

“So?! Couldn’t it have waited until I was done?”

“No, unless you wanted to throw two thousand dollars down the drain.”

Rey’s upper lip stiffens and she glares at him.

“It’s _my_ two thousand dollars to drain—“

“Honestly, would you stop acting like a princess?”

The air turns sour _immediately_. That had been the absolute wrong thing to say. He seemed to be doing that so very often lately. Rey’s voice comes out in a low hiss.

“Call me princess _one more time,_ you self-absorbed bastard.”

He stops then, leans back until he’s sitting up straight. Takes a deep breath through the nose, then exhales quietly and tilts his head. He detaches himself from the situation and slips into Kylo Ren, Attorney at law, and examines her clinically.

She’s angry, and so is he. She raises her voice and he raises his to match. She glares and he only glowers harder. She swings her arms and his fingers twitch. They’re feeding off each other in a constant toxic loop.

Fuck the apology. He wouldn’t play this game.

Rey fumes in front of him, tiny fists balled in her lap as she bunches her denim blue jeans into her fingers, chest heaving.

“Good night,” he snips, getting up and returning to the other side of his bed. He reaches over and flicks off the lamp, leaving the room illuminated by the ghostly white glow of the television as the weatherman chatters on in the background. Rey stares at Kylo and he pointedly refuses to look at her.

He had tried to play nice, and if that’s how she would handle his trying to apologize, then fine.

____________________

Somewhere around two in the morning he hears a grumble. Kylo has just managed to finally close his eyes, exhaustion slowly taking over his consciousness, when another gurgling, rumbling sound hits his ears. His eyes open. He slowly, carefully turns his head towards the source of the noise.

Rey’s sheets are pulled up to her chest, arms resting over them, staring straight to the ceiling like a small little robot. Another gurgling sound.

He arches an eyebrow. As if on cue, his own stomach grumbles, and he remembers that they hadn’t eaten a thing since the peanuts and pretzels aboard their flight, which feels like eons ago. He keeps watching her, and he knows she’s wide awake but she refuses to turn her head to him, so he sighs.

He gets up and pads over silently to the small fridge, cracking it open. Empty. Kylo walks over to his bag and unzips it, the sound making a loud noise that jars his ears after such quiet. He digs for his wallet and pockets it. When he turns around he notices that Rey’s eyes are finally moving, trailing him silently, and he gives himself a small shake of the head before stepping out of the room and propping the door so it sits slightly ajar.

That could be a mistake. She could get up and lock him out.

Still, he refuses to think about it as he walks around looking for a vending machine of any sort. It takes him about five minutes and he ends up by the small indoor pool area before he spots one. He surveys the selection. It’s all junkfood, but it’ll have to do. Kylo shoves his card into the machine after fumbling with his wallet and starts choosing snacks, but ultimately just ends up buying almost one of each thing. Then he moves to the next machine and selects two cans of ginger ale before removing his card and all of his purchases. The walk back is slow as he juggles to keep all the food from falling, and he sighs in relief to find the door still propped ajar.

The room’s still dark when he enters, and Rey hadn’t moved. He walks over to her bed, ignoring the distinct way in which she stiffens, and drops all the snacks at the foot of it. Then he passes her a cold ginger ale quietly, ignoring once again the way she jolts up and stares at him.

After a heartbeat too long, she takes it. Her fingers accidentally graze his and a small jolt of electricity passes between them in that second, then it’s gone along with the cold damp sweat of the cold soft drink. He digs around for a few bags of cheese crackers and takes them over to his side, leaving the rest for her to choose from.

She doesn’t move, holding the can of ginger ale still in the air.

“What’re you doing?” She asks, voice low and curious. Kylo chances a glance at her, finally, and gives her a small shrug.

“We haven’t eaten since the flight,” he offers. Rey narrows her eyes.

“No, I mean, why do you keep feeding me?”

His head finally snaps up at her and his eyebrows travel up.

“You sounded hungry. I know I certainly am,” he says, then, after a moment, “Or, aren’t you?”

Rey lowers her eyes to the rather large pile of junk food piled at her feet and bites her lip, and he allows himself a small smile. She’s starving. He busies himself with cracking open the wrapper of his snacks and winces slightly at the loud pop of the soda can’s tab as it snaps open in the quiet of the night before leaning back into the headboard.

He fumbles for the TV’s remote. The room bathes in a whitish glow and the weather man’s back on, and Kylo sets himself to pointedly avoiding looking at the small girl in the bed next over, though from the corner of his eye he can see her digging through the food pile. Soon enough he hears a second pop.

They sit like that in silence for a half hour, Kylo slowly eating from his bag and Rey devouring her own, neither one quite paying attention to the weatherman, the only other sounds that of his crunching on cheese crackers and Rey crunching on chips. It’s a comfortable quiet, for once. Perhaps not all hope is lost. Then Rey lets out a small sound as she opens her mouth to speak, and he immediately tenses.

It’s starting to become a knee-jerk reaction. Rey talks and his shoulders tense. He bites his lower lip and keeps his eyes trained on the screen.

“Ren,” she calls, “Your name’s Ren, isn’t it?”

He gives a small nod, eyes glued to the screen. From his left he can hear a small intake of breath, and he’s preparing himself for battle when—

“Ren,” she repeats, and this time it sounds more like she’s tasting the name on her lips, and he swallows, “Well, Ren, I just… I wanted to say sorry. For before.”

He allows himself to look at her then, turning his head just slightly. Her features are pale against the TV’s glow, hair messy from resting on a pillow for too long, and shoulders peeking through from the wide collar of a t-shirt that’s far too big for her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he finally replies with a small nod, turning his eyes back to the TV.

“No, no. I do worry about it. I was accusing you of being a jerk while being a total bitch,” she sighs, and his brows shoot up. “You were trying to apologize, and I just…”

When he finally looks at her after a pregnant pause, she’s rubbing her eyes with the back of delicate fingers, looking for all the world like she hadn’t seen a proper day’s rest in a very long time.

“I’m sorry,” she continues, “It was very rude of me.”

It was, but he isn’t about to say that. Not when she’s letting down her walls and trying to make amends.

“It’s alright. Apology accepted.”

“No, it isn’t alright. But, thank you,” she says, and her lips lift up in a small, hesitant smile. Some day he’d remember that smile, the first honest smile she’d ever given him, and think of it so very fondly. In this moment, however, all he can see is a small young woman who looks like she’s about to collapse from exhaustion.

He gives her a small nod, then tilts his chin towards the wrappers on the bed.

“Are you done with all those?”

Rey nods, her cheeks tinging slightly pink in the semi-light of the room.

“I’ll pay you back for these,” she pipes in, staring at the wrappers.

Kylo shakes his head, giving her a small smile.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I could do after, you know… all the puke talk and everything else.”

Rey lets out a giggle, quickly followed by a snort. It takes him by surprise. It’s not the laugh she’d given him before, but a truly delighted sound, and there’s something kind of adorable about the way that snort had come out. She immediately covers her mouth except it sends her into another fit of laughter. He grins, not wanting to break the spell, and quietly gets up and starts collecting all the empty bags.

What she hasn’t eaten he places on the table, then takes her empty can from her hands and turns to deposit it in the trash with his own, and for this night, at least, Kylo figures they’ll get along.

____________________

 

The phone rings. Loudly. Kylo tries to unglue his eyes and turns, hair mussed and face scrunched against the light filtering through the window. He turns to look at Rey, who’s rolling around with a loud groan as she, too, wakes up. She gives him a look from behind sleep laden eyes and frowns; the phone keeps ringing incessantly.

He makes a grab for it and pulls it to his ear, propping himself up on an elbow and mumbling out a _hello_ that he’s pretty sure comes out as a grunt rather than a greeting.

“Mr. Kylo Ren, sir?”

“Speaking,” he replies, bringing up his other hand to rub at his face. A glance at the old digital clock on the small bedside table between the two beds reads six in the morning. They’ve only been asleep for four hours.

“Sir, have you had a chance to see the weather channel yet?”

He recognizes the voice. It’s Albert’s. Poor boy was working probably working a  double shift.

“Should I have?” He asks, blinking his eyes awake. He looks out the window. Nothing’s changed. It’s pouring as if a dam had broken, and he can hear rolling thunder in the far distance.

 _“I’m calling all visitors on behalf of your airline, Sir, to inform you that your flight is being delayed until the day after tomorrow.”_ The boy sounds like he’s reading the information off a teleprompter, by the shift of his voice, _“and that Delta airlines would like to apologize for this further delay. You will be compensated for your troubles with a gift card, and, of course, your stay here will be covered.”_

Kylo sits up and runs his fingers through his hair. Another two days? He rolls his neck until it pops. Well, it’s not like he has anywhere to be in a hurry, anyway.

“Thank you, Albert.” He offers, and Albert - who didn’t expect to be recognized — immediately stutters.

 _“W-would you be so kind as to please inform the lady you’re staying with?”_ There’s a small pause, _“…Miss Jakken.”_

Kylo nods and hangs up the line. Rey’s sat up and is staring at him curiously.

“Who was that?” She asks, testing her bedhead with sleepy fingers, her other hand pulling up at the collar of her shirt to cover her slender shoulders.

Kylo flops back against his pillows and grabs for the television remote, turning the T.V onto the weather channel, where he’d left it tuned to the previous night.  

Sure enough, the weatherman is talking about the weather as though hell had landed on their doorstep. Super fast mile-hour winds, non-stop rain and thunderstorms, and warnings for flooding spread out over several areas. He turns his head to look at Rey and points at the television.

“The desk boy, calling about _that_.”

Rey stiffens, her eyes gluing to the animated man on the screen.

_It looks like we’re in for the long haul, ladies and gentlemen. The storm system’s pushing through from the sea coupled with—_

_“_ What did Albert say, exactly?” She asks, not once looking away from the screen.

Kylo toys with the remote, staring out the window.

“We’re stuck here for two more days,” he finally answers, “Delta will be compensating the passengers for the delays, and covering our stay.”

Rey tosses the blankets aside and gets up, walking towards the same window Kylo’s staring out of until she comes into his field of vision. He watches as she presses her forehead to the window, keeps it there, then lightly lifts it and brings it down with a thud. His eyes widen slightly. Another bang on the window.

“I take it you’re not pleased…” he murmurs, treading carefully. She turns her head just long enough to shoot him a glare before sighing, then walks over to the closet and starts digging in her bag. Out comes her phone, and, he’s pleasantly surprised to see, a cellphone charger. Then she walks to the plug in the wall.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he immediately interrupts, knowing exactly where this would go if she plugged it in. Rey looks over her shoulder and gives him a confused look.

Helpless little woman.

“You’ll short-circuit the whole hotel,” he explains. Rey yanks her hand back from the wall as if burned.

He shakes his head with a small smile and gets up, digging around his own bag until he finds the small power converter plug-box, quickly tossing it to her. She catches it. Rey looks at it, turns it around, inspects it curiously. Then she shrugs.

“Thank you.”

He lets out a noncommittal hum, training his eyes back on the television. The weatherman is confirming Albert’s words. It feels weird, to be getting along with her when only a day ago she basically hated him with all her being. He’ll take what he can get. She walks over to her bed once more and plugs in her phone, resting it on the bedside table and staring at it as if her attention would force it to charge faster. Kylo decides to just mind his own business.

The clock reads 6:15AM.

“I’m going to go shower,” he tells her as he digs in his bag for clothes, Rey lets out a grunt that he takes for agreement, and, when he glances at her over his shoulder, she’s still glaring at her phone. He pulls out his clothes and pads over to the bathroom, grabbing the towel he’d used the night before on his way. It takes him about fifteen minutes to be done and by the time he hops out of the shower, he can hear a small voice coming from the bedroom.

_“No signal?!”_

Kylo shakes his head, and steps out only to find Rey, legs spread out on the bed, staring murder at her phone. He grabs his own and powers it up. Sure enough, zero signal. He points to the landline.

“Try that.”

She jumps for it as if she had forgotten that there was a landline, dialing a number quickly off of her phone and tapping her knee impatiently. Then she scowls.

“Nothing,” she grumbles, before looking at the placard by the phone and finding the front desk’s speed-dial.

“Hi, hi — I tried to make a phone call from your—“ she starts, only to stop abruptly, “Oh.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow.

“The landlines are down. Internal calls only.” She deadpans. “Yeah, got it. Thanks.”

And then she’s slamming the phone down and flopping face first into her pillow, where she starts screaming. Kylo bites his lower lip, then reminds himself not to judge. His own temper tantrums are way worse. He gets up and grabs his wallet and his room key, deciding to just give her space and exiting the room.

____________________

It turns out to be a very long two days. Kylo mostly stays out of the room, deciding that being around her at all times would be about a hundred levels of awkward. He sees her a couple of times at the hotel’s bar, having a meal or staring at her phone angrily, and nods to her if she happens to glance his way, but otherwise they remain pretty silent. And separate.

Which is a good thing. Silence keeps him from accidentally saying the wrong thing now that they’ve formed some sort of truce between them. That first night he walks in around eleven at night to find her already asleep, but by the next day she’s already up before him and pacing.

He turns in bed and watches her for a long moment from under his sheets. She doesn’t seem to notice, so he tracks her as she walks the very small area, huffing and puffing to herself.

“Everything alright?”

She jumps, then seems to remember that he, too, is in the room with her.

“Oh, just...” She sighs, motioning to the window in explanation, as if he’s supposed to know exactly what she means.

“It’ll be done tomorrow,” he reassures her.

Rey grinds her teeth and resumes pacing, “I don’t have that much time.”

Kylo sits up, finally, blankets pooling on his lap as he bends his knees up and rests his elbows on them.

“I’m sure wherever you’re going will be there tomorrow.”

That earns him a glare.

“I can’t just sit around,” she clips.

Kylo sighs, then pushes himself up off out of bed.

“Alright, so don’t sit around. Will you join me for breakfast?”

Rey narrows her eyes at him but then looks around the room, out the window, and realizes that being cooped up in the room won’t help her either, so she sighs and nods. He extends his hand towards the bathroom, as if to say, ladies first, and watches her go. About forty five minutes later, they’re walking side by side into the hotel’s restaurant. A waitress who, like Albert, looks far too young to be working there, extends them a couple of menus. Kylo grabs his, making sure not to touch the girl as she gives him a long look, then buries himself in it.

The waitress walks off only to return five minutes later with a pad in hand.

“What would you like?” She chirps, and it’s way too early in the morning for anyone to sound so happy.

“Eggs, bacon - lots of bacon! - hash browns, and… orange juice,” Rey finishes, surveying the menu to make sure she hasn’t missed anything.

Kylo looks at her with newfound appreciation. He’s far too used to women trying to eat like little birds around him, and it’s a breath of fresh air to find one who just wants to take the whole menu and feels no remorse about it. Kylo orders the same thing and they spend the rest of their meal in pleasant silence.

Then…

“So, you never answered me,” Rey says over her glass of orange juice, “what brings you to Ireland?”

Kylo’s hands stop mid-cutting, immediately running through every excuse he could give her, before he settles on a grunt that sounds like “business.” Rey arches an eyebrow, prompting him to speak, so he swallows and sighs.

“I’m…taking over my uncle’s pub.”

That was a safe enough answer. He wouldn’t get into the why with her, not when the wound was so fresh. Rey, seeming to notice that Kylo won’t divulge anything further, simply nods and gives him a small smile, returning to her food, something he’s grateful for.

“What about you?” He asks before he can help himself.

Her reasons were her business, really, but she’d asked, so he would, too. Rey takes a long moment chewing her food, and he almost thinks she won’t answer.

“Meeting up with my boyfriend,” she replies, immediately dropping her fork and knife lightly and fidgeting with her napkin.

Suddenly everything made perfect sense.

“Must be quite a guy,” he provides with what he hopes is a friendly smile, “chasing him all the way to Ireland.”

Rey gives him a silent look then returns to her food, and Kylo sighs internally. There he goes again, making shit worse.

_Stop talking, Kylo. Just keep your mouth shut._

“He is,” she says.

“I’m sorry?”

“My boyfriend. He’s quite a guy.”

Kylo tilts his head, then nods. The man certainly must be, for her to hike all the way to Ireland and deal with all this nonsense. Had he been in her place, he would have turned back around and gone home a long time ago. He stays silent, though, because every time he opens his mouth, somehow he makes things worse.

Their server comes around, all bright eyes and brilliant smile, and asks them if they’d like something more. Rey shakes her head and so Kylo pulls out his wallet and passes his card, and the waitress takes off. When he looks up, Rey is staring at him.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” He asks, trying to cover the last twenty four hours looking for something else he’s done wrong.

“Feeding me. You keep feeding me,” she answers by way of explanation.

Oh.

Kylo leans back in his chair and brings his glass to his lips, inspecting her over the clear rim of it as he takes a gulp. What a strange girl. He’s never met a single girl who had ever felt affronted at being treated to a meal, and it’s not like he’d asked her on a date or anything. He shrugs.

“I invited you. And I was hungry,” he finally replies while setting his glass down quietly.

Rey’s shoulders seem to lose a little bit of their tense posture. Did she think he had wanted something from her? Then she looks at him and shrugs.

“Fine, but then the next one’s on me.”

Her words left absolutely no room to argue. Usually he’d say absolutely not. He was perfectly capable of paying for a meal for a lady, but the way she was looking at him said she wouldn’t have it. He gives her a small smile.

“Fine.”

That night, they decide to make good on Rey’s promise when they both wander off to the hotel’s bar. Rey has changed into her coral dress again and when he places his hand on her lower back to help ease her onto the bar stool, his fingers accidentally meet with bare skin that burns. Rey tenses, immediately pulling away from him while trying to pass it off as readjusting in her seat. The ghost of that touch remains on his fingers far longer than such a casual touch should.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he tells her, stretching his fingertips as he walks away towards the gentlemen’s rooms.

He walks to the sink and quickly runs cold water over his hands, numbing them until the feeling goes away. What on earth is _wrong_ with him? He runs fingers through his hair once he dries his hands and sighs.

A few minutes later after fussing over this one strand of hair that keeps irritatingly falling in front of his line of vision, he finally steps out. The music of the bar immediately overtake his senses. The bar’s crowded, with pretty much every single passenger from his flight and their grandmother looking for either a meal or a drink. His eyes survey the crowd, travel towards the bar, and train in on a coral dress. Then to the man standing by it, leaning into Rey a little too closely for someone who doesn’t know her. He can almost _sense_ Rey’s discomfort as he watches her try to lean away, gripping at her wallet, back muscles tense like a coil. Any minute now she’ll bolt. He looks at the man again and notices the red hair, and his mind immediately travels to an insufferable ginger three thousand miles away.

Kylo stalks forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And because the universe hates everyone, it keeps raining. Ireland why you so wet during this trip? *waggles eyebrows*  
> *is shot*
> 
> Here's to this chapter and baby steps. ;) 
> 
> Forever thankful to the lovely EjBlaKit who continually keeps me sane and makes this thing a better story, chapter by chapter, by not letting me make a fool of myself. love you bb.


	7. Ham & Butter

“Well look who it is. The Ray of Sunshine,” comes a heavy irish-accented voice at her shoulder and Rey jumps. She’d been too busy trying to ignore the ghost sensation of a hand on her back to notice the man who’d walked into her air bubble. Rey immediately tries to inch farther away on her seat, cursing it for being so small that she can only shift in place. Her stool creaks under the sudden weight shift.

“Uhm,” Rey starts, really taking in the owner of the voice. It’s the redhead from the bus. The extra talkative one without a filter and, apparently, a concept of personal space. Rey arches an eyebrow, but immediately pastes on what she hopes is a pleasant smile. “Hello.”

“Ray, right?” He asks, leaning forward and giving her a sickly sweet smile, all sparkly white teeth and thin lips. Rey tenses further. He reaches forward until his hand is inches away from hers on the counter. Rey immediately snatches her hand back.

“No, it’s Rey.”

But it doesn’t matter that she corrects him for the second time since she’s met him. He’s too busy staring at her bare shoulders, at her waist, at the hike of her skirt. She immediately curses herself for wearing this instead of a pair of jeans.

“Hmm. I’m Declan,” he offers, not that Rey had wanted to know. She takes a couple of glances around the bar, looking for a familiar face that could help her. Nothing.

“Uh huh,” she responds in the most noncommittal way she can, hoping he’ll catch the hint that she’s not interested.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Declan begins in a poor imitation of a seductive murmur, propping an elbow on the counter and leaning forward _just enough_ so that his jean-clad knees brush against her naked ones. Her body reacts viscerally, she swings her legs inward until they bang against the bar, but the sharp pain is preferable to this guy’s legs, so she bites back a curse and gives him a stiff smile. He doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy staring elsewhere.

“How lucky,” she deadpans.

“So, can I buy a pretty lady a drink? Call it a _Welcome to Ireland_ toast,” he offers, eyes roving over her face, her eyes, her lips. When they land on her neck Rey’s stomach flops again in a really uncomfortable, sickening way. She keeps her silence. He seems to take it as a challenge.

“One of the quiet ones, then? I like the quiet ones,” he says, leaning forward, “They’re often the ones that are full of _fire and fun_ , Ray.”

Rey resists the urge to gag, feeling the motion stopping short in her throat as she leans back and he leans ever forward.

“And you seem so full of fire, a beautiful woman like yourself. So, what do you say to that drink?” That last sentence comes in a long, drawn out whisper.

She’s about to fall out of her seat when she hears a set of steps that she’s starting to quickly recognize, even above the din of the music. It’s an assured stride, the click of heels engaging in long steps prickling her eardrums as Rey nearly jumps to attention. She turns her head to see Ren stalking towards them, eyes zeroed in on the guy in front of her with a barely contained scowl on his face.

Rey nearly sags in relief.

They fall into it as if rehearsed. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and perhaps this is why, when Ren approaches her, Rey gives him one panicked look before plastering a smile on her face. He immediately moves closer, wraps his arm around her waist and tucks her into his side. Rey’s fingers dig into the pocket of his hoodie beneath his leather jacket, feeling a surprisingly hard abdomen tense as if waiting for a punch, then relax under her fingers, and she bunches them into the fabric. _Please play along_. His lips press a soft kiss into her temple and she makes herself lean in, widening her smile as she hugs him closer.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he mumbles into her hair, voice soft and breath warm, loud enough for the redheaded man before her to hear. Rey looks up at Ren and gives him an even wider smile, trying not to show just how relieved she is.

“No worries, sweetheart, I already ordered for us,” she replies with far more cheer than she feels. Rey hasn’t ordered, of course, but it’s one more lie to cement the act. She watches Ren’s line of vision move to take in the redhead that only a minute ago had been coming on _strong_.

“Who are you?” He asks, and his voice is no longer warm. It’s hard as granite and lower than she’d ever heard it, and it sends a shiver down her spine. Ren’s fingers tighten reassuringly, but his gaze never leaves the other man.

“Honey,” Rey jumps in, making sure to emphasize the word with a grin, “This is Declan.”

Declan’s taken on a particularly stiff posture as his dark, beady eyes take Rey and Ren in. He didn’t expect her to be accompanied. He extends a hand to Ren, which Ren doesn’t take. Instead Ren looms closer, face unreadable, eyes zeroed in on the other man’s. Declan stutters, dropping his hand awkwardly.

“I’m… sorry. I didn’t realize—“ he begins, then gives Rey a pointed, embarrassed look. Ren spares him the embarrassment of having to talk out his serious lack of judgement, however, when he speaks next.

“Are you one of my wife’s acquaintances? It’s nice to meet you, Declan.”

It was not nice meeting him. Ren’s voice leaves no room for doubt that Declan should turn around and walk away _right now_. Rey does smile genuinely then. Perhaps this giant of a man is her savior after all, and not just by putting an oxygen mask on her.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Declan mumbles, before he looks over his shoulder as though he’s forgotten something far away. “I— Ah… sorry. I just remembered I have somewhere to be.”

He excuses himself with a farewell to Rey that holds none of the attempted sleek warmth and charm he’d put on earlier for her. It’s borderline professional. The man she knows as Declan turns around and immediately hightails it out of there. Rey sags against Ren the second Declan’s back is to them, her head pressing into the crook of his arm as tension slips from her bones; she feels Ren give her side an absent-minded yet soft and reassuring rub with his thumb, his eyes tracking the redhead until he’s all but out of sight.

He turns his head to look down at her.

“Are you alright?” He asks, and his voice has returned to warm and normal, not the chip of ice it had been but a moment ago.

She nods and he lets his hand drop finally, taking a step back. Rey gives him a weak smile and turns back to the bar, snatching her hand from his pocket in a hurry, fingers unnaturally warm with the feeling of taut muscle underneath ghosting her fingertips. The wood grain of the dark bar’s countertop suddenly becomes the most interesting thing in the world. She watches him out of the corner of her eye as he takes a seat next to her on an empty bar stool and pulls out his wallet and phone, propping them on the counter. Ren stays quiet the whole time. She’s thankful for that. It gives her the few seconds she needs to collect herself until the burning sensation of a pair of warm lips disappears from her temple.

“Thank you for that,” she says, swallowing spit that isn’t there. “It was…”

Ren nods, eyes on his phone as he flips it by the corners slowly for something to do with his hands. His eyes land on her temple for a second, and they’re only swapping stolen glances, when he finally speaks. “You didn’t look very comfortable.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she agrees.

He looks at her square in the eye then, the dim golden light of the bar bouncing back from his brown eyes and turning them a particular shade of amber that reminds her of brandy and long evenings. Then he’s giving her a small smile and the spell is broken when he says, “So, about dinner.”

Rey calls down a waitress and demands that Ren not hold back on her account — the man was big, he looked like he needed a ton of calories just to feel full — and he gives her an amused half smile before placing his order: a ham and butter sandwich, fries, and a some fancy sounding beer she can’t pronounce. Rey gapes.

“Ham and b—what?” she asks, confused. She offers to pay and he buys a ham and butter sandwich? Weird man. He _does_ smirk then, and Rey is left to place an order for a large hamburger, fries, and a drink. She takes out her ID but the waitress doesn’t even bother looking at it, and her brows rise.

When their food arrives she glares at his plate. Ham and butter sandwich. She only realizes she’s staring when Ren lets her know as much.

“You’re staring,” he states, digging into his fries. Rey glares at him.

“Ham and butter sandwich,” she murmurs, more to herself than to him. The smirk comes back to his face.

“If you want to try some all you have to do is ask,” he counters, but he sounds so smug that she’d rather slap that look off his face than try his sandwich in that moment. Still, he takes half of it and places it on her plate unprompted.

“What— No! I’m feeding _you_ this time, remember?” She balks, trying to hand it back. He holds her hand by the wrist, stopping her from dropping it back on his plate.

“I know, and I’m letting you pay for me, even.” He responds as if he’s doing her a favor, a tiny smirk on his face. “Just try it,” he urges, pushing her hand back to her.

Rey glares at him, at the sandwich, then at her own loaded plate. In response, Ren arches a dark eyebrow and she’s left to either have him hold onto her wrist until one of them gave in, or take a bite. She gives in. Rey leans forward, and only when she opens her mouth to take a bite does he finally let her go, a self satisfied little grin on his face. Rey pinches her nose at him in distaste.

That is, until buttery ham and bread hits her tongue and her neurons spark. What in the—

She takes another giant bite, forgetting that it’s technically half of his meal. The self satisfied smugness rolling off his shoulders only increases. Rey chews at a million miles an hour, trying to both inhale the sandwich and speak fast enough. When she finally swallows, her eyes have gone a little wide.

“That’s not ham and butter.”

Ren grabs his beer and takes a swig. “It most definitely is.”

So they set about arguing about ham and butter for the next fifteen minutes, only stopping to actually take bites from their food. He lets her keep the entire half.

“So what do they put in it?!” She asks, bewildered as she finishes the last bit of it. Ren shrugs.

“No preservatives, for one,” taking the last bite of his half and swallowing it down with beer. Rey considers telling the waitress to bring her a tub of butter to take home. “You should try the french one next.”

Rey gapes again. Then she looks down at her half eaten burger, already feeling full. Not one to waste, however, she pushes it towards him and he frowns, but sets to eating it after Rey basically threatens to force it down his throat. Food is a commodity that should never go to waste.

Somehow they slip into surprisingly friendly conversation for the rest of the night, and everything’s going so very well that Rey feels some of the tension she’s carried for days slipping out of her shoulders-- until the TV gets turned on. It’s the weather channel.

What was it with these people and the damn weather channel?!

The mood sours instantly and the itch she’d felt all morning --  the one Ren had worked so hard to make her forget about, she realizes with startling clarity -- comes back full force. So much time lost. She’d been in this damn hotel for two days already, and it was beginning to look like it would take her another one. A nagging roil grips her stomach as she realizes she’d also forgotten all about getting to Dublin, getting to Finn, since breakfast. _Too busy thinking about stupid ham and butter_. Her stomach suddenly turns on her meal. Worse yet, she couldn’t even get a hold of Finn.

Ren is studiously avoiding looking at her, giving her space to think. That is, until she shoves herself slowly off her stool and grabs her wallet. He arches an eyebrow but says nothing, and she walks away to the nearest payphone. Ren’s eyes follow her, then he bows his head over his drink when he realizes where she’s gone, leaving Rey to turn away from the noise.

She picks up the phone and swipes her card to make an international phone call, then dials the one phone number she’s ever memorized. And—

Nothing.

Rey takes a deep breath and hangs up, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. She stares back out into the bar, spotting Ren, who’s busy looking up at the TV and taking a slow swig of his beer, curling in on himself with knees pressed tight against the bar and back bowed in order for his elbows to reach the countertop. She’s stuck in a country she knows nothing of and the only person she even remotely can talk to is a man she’s known for exactly… What? Two days? She takes in a deep breath then walks back to Ren, hopping on her seat once, twice, before she can finally land her bottom on it and wobble herself into place. He gives her a side glance, but if he’s amused by the ridiculous little hop, he doesn’t show it. Smart man. She doesn’t know if she could deal with ridicule at this very moment.

“No luck?” He asks instead, thumbing the bottle’s neck absentmindedly. Rey lets out an irritated grunt. He nods.

They sit in silence for a while, Ren’s eyes on the TV and Rey’s attention swimming in the noise of the bar, twitching her fingers as she toys with a cold fry she’d snatched from their plates, any leftover appetite having disappeared with the beep of a dead phone line. She catches Ren giving her random glances as the silence stretches before dutifully going back to his beer.

“Stop staring,” she finally grumbles, too glum to bother putting any heat into that warning. Funny, that. How had her life come to this? Days ago she’d been sitting in her loft, in the warm light of the setting afternoon, daydreaming about family and friends…and now she’s halfway across the world sitting in a pub full of perfect strangers, next to a slightly-less perfect stranger, bossing him around.

Ren looks at the TV and she notices that he doesn’t look at her again. So she finally lets out a grunt.

“I have to find a way out of here,” she grumbles.

“Will he be there tomorrow?” He asks, a strong dark brow arched in question, and Rey knows he’s referring to Finn. Rey nods.

“So what’s the hurry?” Ren continues, looking a bit confused.

“I just—“ Rey starts, but her tongue glues to the roof of her mouth.

She can’t finish that sentence. How could she admit that the reason she’s so impatient is that the longer she goes without seeing Finn, the more she realizes what an idiotic thing it was to hop on a plane and follow, like a love-sick desperate teenager? How can she admit that the more days that pass, the more she starts to lose her courage? Rey shakes her head.

“I just need to go.”

And that seems like the right thing to do. She’s never been one for patience, after all. Suddenly Rey has a plan again, if hastily formulated. She calls over the bar tender and passes her credit card to pay for the meal, aware of how dangerously close she’s coming to having to tap into the couple of hundred dollars she has in her bank account. Ren narrows his eyes at her hand as she extends the card, obviously looking for ways to make her not pay so that he can, but it’s too late and the bartender walks away with it. She gives him a smug grin, despite the roiling anxiety in her belly. There, they were even.

Sort of.

He’s still two meals ahead, but she plans on leaving now.

“It was nice to meet you, Ren,” she finally says when her card is returned to her. Ren’s eyes narrow.

“What, you actually mean to leave _now?_ At this hour? In this weather? _”_ He points towards the screen, using the weatherman as back up for his argument, “Are you insane?”

But Rey’s already walking away, leaving him to stare at her retreating back. She leaves the loud bar and walks quickly through the halls until she finds Room 305, punching in the key until it blinks green and lets her slide the door open, and she gets to work. She grabs her bag, shoves her PJs that she’d hung over the chair into it, looks around for anything she may have forgotten on the bed or the night table, then nearly runs into the bathroom to collect her toiletries. Rey takes one last run around the room before staring out the window. It’s raining hard, but not as hard as before, and now would be the best time to go. She couldn’t wait until tomorrow night. She’d find a way to just get to Finn. There _had_ to be a taxi service, or a bus, or a train still operational. Some way to get to Dublin. She doesn’t know that her nerve will last her long enough, otherwise.

She crafts a plan quickly: First collect everything — check — then go to the front desk and ask for phone numbers. The hotel’s may be down, but perhaps she could find a pay phone. She’d find a store and buy an umbrella, or something. She does one last look around the room and swings the door open, ready to step outside when—

—A mountain of a body blocks her way. Her eyes jerk up immediately as she takes a step back. Ren. He’s leaning against the doorway, staring down at her with arms crossed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He asks, arching an eyebrow.

Rey gapes.

Was he being serious? Her fists ball at her sides and she stares up at him, defiant nose up in the air as she glares him down.

“Move,” she demands.

There’s none of the friendliness they’d shared before over a sandwich. The man before her is blocking her from getting out, and there is nothing Rey hates more than being cornered.

“Only when you tell me where you’re going,” he replies, not moving an inch. Rey frowns.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Dublin.” Rey bites, “Now move.”

“No,” he replies. Her eyes travel robotically to his.

“Excuse me?” Is all that she can muster because what was _his problem?_

“Have you even looked outside?” He prompts, looking over her head at the window. “You’re a woman traveling alone and you want to step out in the dark into a thunderstorm in a country you where you know absolutely _no one_ , and with no way to contact your boyfriend. Are you out of your mind?”

Rey’s finally had it. She doesn’t need this absolute stranger telling her what she should or should not consider. She’d spent her whole life _surviving_. A stupid bit of rain wouldn’t pose a danger to her now. She lifts her hand and bunches them into his hoody, trying to push him out of the way. He’s like a brick wall.

“I. Said. _Move_ ,” she hisses, trying to push harder with every word she enunciates. He doesn’t budge, just stands there like an unforgiving wall of muscle and leather.

“At least wait until tomorrow,” he finally speaks, and Rey chances a glance at him. His brows are furrowed, as if confused at himself about why he’s even doing any of this, and Rey can’t help but agree. This is none of his business.

Rey finally lets out a frustrated grunt bordering on a scream and drops her hands, stepping back.

“Look, I don’t know why you suddenly feel the need to be chivalrous or whatever, but I can look after myself just fine. I have done so all my life. _Thank you_ for having looked after me on the plane, and here, even, but I will be _just_ fine,” she starts, realizing too late that she’s rambling. She doesn’t owe this man an explanation. Still, she continues, “And you can get out of my way now. The sooner I leave the sooner I can get to Dublin. _Unharmed_.”

Ren straightens then, almost blocking all the light coming in from the hall. He just stands there regarding her in that annoying way he’d had when he’d refused to budge his knees on the plane. Rey grinds her teeth.

“Your concern’s been duly noted, but your sense of duty is entirely misplaced,” she adds, hoping that this finally will get him to move. It doesn’t. When she speaks next, it comes at a near growl. “Ren, move. Now.”

Ren purses his lips and his lids lower to half mast, and he gives her a long look before stepping aside, perhaps having decided that this was not a battle worth fighting. He owes her nothing, after all. Fucking finally. She looks at him for a second longer then steps down the hall without saying good bye. She doubts she’ll see the stubborn man again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well then, Declan, run. RUN AS FAR AS YOUR LEGS CAN CARRY YOU.  
> Also, Declan is the name of the original protagonist lol too bad I took his name and gave it to an asshole (#notsorry)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> The Ham & Butter thing is partly because I was v. hungry for one, and partly because it's a nod to Satan Wears a Rolex, which I am so glad the writer has continued writing again <3  
> p.s: did you know that apparently in france, ireland, and several other european countries, the butter is so rich you can ask for it as a TOPPING? it's cut in slices like you'd slice cheese. This coming from a friend who just recently moved there. I want some.
> 
> A billion thanks to my beta, EjBlaKit, for continually making this better <3


	8. Umbrella

Kylo clenches and unclenches his jaw. He’s staring down the hall which the girl he’s come to know as Rey had stormed off, counting the seconds as they pass painfully by.

Clench.

Unclench.

She’s long left, of course, but, despite himself, he can’t seem to just unroot his feet and do anything but stare. What an infuriating woman. She’d turned the last two and a half days of his life upside down in a way he couldn’t remember anyone doing, bringing him out of his carefully constructed walls and dragging him out for a fight. She’d managed to get apologies out of him which, Kylo admits to himself, is already a feat of its own. And then she’d stood there telling him to mind his own business as she walked away.

Thunder rolls in the distance. Sheets of rain beat on the windows. The storm had picked up speed again. Kylo curses.

He owes her nothing. In fact, she _owes him_ , but that doesn’t stop him from finally moving as he tosses himself into the room. He collects his bag and his belongings in a rush while shoving his phone and wallet into his pockets, before bolting out of the room. The door closes with a slam that echoes up and down the hall and he urges his legs to carry him faster, long steps bringing him to the lobby. It’s deserted except for Albert, whom Kylo is starting to wonder about whether the kid even has a life outside of work, and he strides towards him at a pace that makes the young man flinch when Albert’s eyes land on him.

“M-Mister Ren,” Albert pipes in with a squeak. “How can I help you?”

Kylo’s rather pleased to see he’d made an impression on the boy. Still, he has to be friendly.

“Did Miss Jakken check out?” He asks, and Albert immediately bends over the computer screen. It feels like ages.

When Albert finally looks up and shakes his head Kylo has to bodily suppress the urge to roll his eyes. She’d stormed out without even checking out of the room. Kylo pinches his nose with his index finger and thumb and lets out a sigh.

“Did she leave?” He asks. Albert seems to connect the dots.

Of course the man would have seen her walk out of the front door. There was nobody else in the lobby. Her footsteps would have sounded like a chorus echoing against the walls in such a large room like this.

“Your call about the extended stay,” he starts, giving Albert a patient look, “Please check me and Ms. Jakken out of our room, and if you’d be so kind I will collect her gift card and mine. I will give her hers when I catch up to her.”

Albert gives him a wary look but, upon seeing that Kylo’s not budging, he hands over two prepaid cards as Kylo hands back two sets of room keycards. He swings the strap of his leather duffelbag over his shoulder and sticks the gift cards in his pocket behind his wallet, then looks at Albert.

“Do you have an umbrella?”

“Uh—“

“An umbrella!” He repeats, patience running out as he looks at Albert and hears the rolling thunder as if it were right above his head. Albert ducks behind the counter and pulls out a large umbrella, holding it tightly.

“Well it’s my umbrella but—“ he starts, and Kylo nearly curses. He pulls out the prepaid cards and hands one of them to Albert.

“Here, take my card. However much is on there is yours. I’m sure you can buy another one.” Then he snatches the umbrella from Albert’s fingers and turns around.

“But Sir this is two hundred—“ Albert shouts after him, but Kylo’s already pushing out of the lobby as he opens up the large umbrella. The kid could consider it his tip.

Once outside the sound of rain drowns out anything but his breathing. He looks up and down the streets, trying to find her. He narrows his eyes against the darkness, trying to see through the rain, and just catches a small flash of coral under a streetlamp long enough to run after it. The open umbrella doesn’t do much. He angles it to where it takes most of the beating, but it’s raining hard enough that he’s getting wet anyway. He gets a full on view of her passing another streetlamp, arms wrapped around herself and sopping wet, head and shoulders hunched down against the rain as if that would help anything, and Kylo’s nostrils flare.

_Helpless, stubborn woman._

Kylo slows his step until he’s walking behind her, front of the umbrella held out so that it covers her head, and just as she’s noticing that the sky is no longer falling on her anymore, he lets out a hard huff.

“You’re helpless,” he repeats again, tone gruff. Rey swivels around and pins him with a hard glare, and he’s forced to stop.

A man and a woman, standing under an umbrella and bathed in the street lamp’s dim light that dances around them, broken by the rain, in the middle of Ireland under what feels like the strongest rainstorm in the history of humanity. He almost laughs, and images of his mother singing _Dancing in the Rain_ flash through his mind. What had his life come to? The thought dies away as another roll of thunder passes overhead.

“What’re you doing?” Rey asks perfunctorily, and the shiver running through her limbs is nothing if not obvious. She’s shaking like a leaf in the wind, her dress all but glued to her skin and the bag he’d worked so carefully to keep waterproof bared to the elements as she wraps her arms around her torso.

“Making sure you’re not dead in a ditch,” he replies flippantly before he can stop himself. What _is_ _he_ doing? He should have been inside, in the now empty room, getting ready for bed. He should not be trekking after a girl he barely knows in the middle of the night with his belongings in tow, trying to shield her from the rain.

_You can be an asshole all you want, Ben, but that doesn’t excuse you from being a gentleman._

He’d been told that as a child once by his father. They had been suffering through one of his mother’s sappy movies after she’d come back from a long day at work. Nine year old Ben Solo had not understood a thing about the movie, but it made his mother happy and so his father suffered through it next to her on the couch. And if his father could suffer through it, then so could he. He no longer remembers what the movie had been. But he remembers his father laughing as Leia smacked Han’s shoulder for cursing, and perhaps he only remembered the words because it was one of the few times he saw his mother and father truly get along, teasing instead of fighting each other for once.

And so here he stands, the asshole trying to be the gentleman. He had certainly been the former to Rey Jakken. Perhaps he could finally make up for it once and for all. There is also the fact that as a lawyer who had often had to defend victims of assault, he feels morally obligated to ensure she doesn’t become one.

Rey’s not having it, though.

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms further up until they rest under her breasts, cocking a hip and trying to look intimidating in all of her soaking wet duckling look-alike glory. Kylo smirks. He can’t help himself. Helpless little woman.

“I am doing just fine, thank you,” she mutters. But then her eyes land on his duffel bag over his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

Kylo shrugs.

“I felt like going for a stroll,” he dead pans with half lidded eyes.

Rey huffs, “In the middle of a storm?”

“Why not? You seem to be doing the same thing.”

If looks could kill he’d be six feet under by then.

“Well, go stroll elsewhere,” she bites, turning around and walking away from him. He stares as she steps back into the rain and shakes his head, following behind until the umbrella is once again covering her. Rey stops so suddenly that he runs into her. His chest collides with her back, her head bouncing lightly against his collarbone, and he throws out a hand to steady himself before he can think of what he’s doing. It lands on her waist and she stiffens.

But she doesn’t move, waiting for _him to._ He gets a whiff of floral shampoo over the heady smell of rain clinging to her, tingling the tip of his nose. He makes a hasty retreat, dropping his hand as she calls to him over her shoulder.

“I thought I said you should go stroll elsewhere.” The way she spit out those words is more like _go take a fucking hike_ , really.

Kylo shrugs, even if she can’t see it, stubbornly setting his shoulders.

“And I thought I said you should have stayed inside instead of wandering out into the middle of a storm like a mad woman.”

Rey turns around, chin tilted up to try and stare at him even though she barely reaches the height of _his_ chin, forcing him to bend his neck down to stare back. He sighs.

“You’re awfully impulsive,” he comments, and even in the dim light he can see a creep of color flushing up her neck. He must have hit on a raw nerve.

“Look, I already told you. I don’t need you to try and take care of me. I’m perfectly fine on my own. I just need to find a train or a bus and get to Dublin and I’ll be _fine_. Perfectly fine. Without your help, I might add.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow then. He should turn around. He should walk away with his umbrella and leave her in the middle of the thunderstorm to get wet and fend for herself, if only because she’s _so damn stubborn_. He should say ‘ _fine, go ahead_ ,’ and part ways right in that moment.

Instead he does what he’s best at: he replies like a smartass.

“Oh yeah? And where is that train station, exactly?”

Her face pales in the dim light of the street and she looks around quickly, suddenly realizing she hadn’t thought that far ahead. Why is he not surprised? He shakes his head and shoves the umbrella at her.

“Hold this.”

Rey frowns but grabs it, and because she’s so much shorter than he is he’s forced to stoop in order to not bop his head against it. He gives her a sour look but she only smirks back, relishing getting the upper hand on him if only on this small thing. He pulls out a map and glints at it, forcing her to move closer to the street lamp so he can see the tiny names and look for the street they’re on.

“You have a map.” Rey deadpans. He looks up at her from under long, thick lashes.

Of course he had a map. Being prepared was the one rule he lived by lately.

“When was the last time you checked your cellphone’s signal?” He asks, and Rey bites her lip.

 _I thought so_.

His eyes fly back to his map and he finds the street they’re on, not that far from the hotel. He traces his finger down the road until he finds a train station.

“It’s a bit of a hike. A mile walk from here. Are you sure you want to do this or would you just be reasonable and go back to the hotel?” He asks, trying to be the voice of reason.

Then he remembers he’d checked them out.

Right.

Well, he’d just pay for two rooms then. It’s not like he can’t afford it. Except... they only had one room available. The room they’d just vacated.

One room, then. For the both of them. Again.

“Which way?” She asks, little hands fisted and arms wrapped in front of her, and he can see her shivering. Of course she’d choose to go to the train station. He considers offering his jacket but she’s staring murder at him and he doubts she’d even accept it, so he grabs the umbrella from her and starts walking.

When she doesn’t follow he turns around, and he’ll never forget the sight she paints. She’s standing still under the streetlamp, getting rained on for all the weather’s worth, hunched in on herself with water cascading down her head, dripping off her lashes, spidering down her high cheeks and running in a trickle down her chin. She looks cold and small and pathetic in her little floral coral dress. He can’t just let her go on her own. The way she’s holding herself slaps a fluorescent sign over her head that basically screams ‘ _Look at me! I’m young, and I’m not from here, and I’m ripe for being mugged and assaulted!’_

Kylo lets out a rather theatrical sigh and swings his arm for her to come to his side. “Well, are you coming or what?”

She frowns. Then she takes a step forward, and another, and he can hear the squishy sounds of her shoes and almost smiles. Impulsive.

He’d get her to Dublin, where he’d be able to just wash his hands clean of her once she ended up in her boyfriend’s arms, then he’d take off to go to his uncle’s pub. It’s not like he had anywhere else to be.

“Why are you doing this?” She asks, as if having read his mind. Kylo turns his head to look down at her once she’s safely back under the umbrella and he shifts arms to help cover her fully, even if it means his shoulder starts getting a little damp.

“Doing what?” He asks as he plays dumb like he had when he was a child when Leia would ask him if he’d gotten into the frozen cookie dough.

“Helping me.” She bites, but the shiver that escapes her with those words mostly just takes all signs of reproach away. Kylo shrugs.

“I have to go to Dublin, too. Might as well have company.”

It’s a lie, really. He had been on his way to Dublin only because it was the major airport. Once in Dublin he would have purchased a car and driven himself to Dingle after sightseeing most of the country. In truth, having landed in Cork put him about eighty percent closer to Dingle than if he’d landed in Dublin, and his going all the way there meant he was taking a massive detour…but he’s not going to tell her that. Plus it beat staying in that tiny hotel with nothing to do for however long this took, because by the look of this storm, it isn’t going away tomorrow.

Rey is staring at him from the corner of her eye, looking entirely unconvinced as they walk slowly forward.

“Would you like my jacket?” He finally asks, getting the impression that if he were to take it off and just give it to her she might smack him.

He remembers her tensing under his touch when it had come unbidden at the bar. She wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.

Still, his mind immediately travels to the second time he’d had to make physical contact with her. She’d begged at him silently to help intervene with the creep whose name he’s already forgotten and they had fallen into it so easily it had been startling. He’d had to swallow hard when her hand had snuck into the pocket of his hoody, pushing his nose and mouth into her temple to keep it from showing in his face as he’d planted a soft kiss there. He’d gotten the same noseful of floral shampoo then. Light and soft and mouth watering against her silky hair. His tongue had gone dry immediately.  

But they had an act to put on, so he’d pulled her closer and cradled her into his side, and lowered his usually hard tone to a soft murmur as he greeted her, and the smile she’d blessed him with had been blinding and bright.

“Uhm…” Her voice breaks through his train of thought, snapping him back to the present. He clears his throat lightly and turns his head down to look at her.

What had they been talking about?

Rey looks down at her drenched clothes then back at him and bites her lip. “Would…— I mean…”

Ah, yes. The jacket. He hands her the umbrella’s handle again and sets about to contorting himself under it to slip his leather jacket off. They exchange items, him taking back the umbrella and Rey wrapping the jacket over her shoulders, clinging to it at the front. The small sigh of relief she lets out is borderline a moan and Kylo has to bite his tongue _hard_ to keep his body from reacting. What _was it_ with this girl?

Dublin could not arrive soon enough.

Rey offers him a small smile and he almost forgets again what he was thinking about, so he lengthens his gait until she has to follow him or be left in the rain, and that helps _a little_. But not much. Not by a mile.

They walk that mile in silence, however, huddling under the umbrella which — and he sends up thanks for Albert in that moment — is surprisingly sturdy. The Irish at least knew how to make umbrellas well.

The entrance to the train station is pretty deserted, but they both give a sigh of relief to see that it is open. From where they stand Kylo can see a handful of travelers patiently waiting. Once they get up to the ticket booth, Kylo suddenly remembers something.

“Here,” he says, digging into his back pocket and pulling out a prepaid card. He pushes it towards Rey. She stares at it in his hand.

“What’s that?” She asks, giving him a wary glance that borderline makes him roll his eyes.

“Would you _stop_ that? I have no ulterior motives here. This is your prepaid card from the airline. You know, the one you so thoughtlessly forgot to grab when you also forgot to check out?” He responds, his tone turning a little harder than necessary with frustration.

He should calm himself down before it turns into unleashed temper, but the fact that she’d acted as though he had wanted absolutely _anything_ from her so many times had him on edge. This. _This_ is why he tries his hardest not to come into physical contact with women, why he avoids flirting. Why he should have just _stayed in his damn hotel room._ He grunts, then shoves the card towards her until she has no option but to take it. At least, when he looks at her face, she has the decency to look bashful and embarrassed.

She turns around and walks over to the ticket booth and purchases her ticket, and he stands behind her until it’s his turn. Then they walk silently, stiffly, to one of the benches and sit down. She’s still curled in on herself inside his jacket and Kylo purses his lips and stares ahead, refusing to even _look_ at her. So when she speaks, it’s physically painful to turn his head and pay attention.

“I’m… sorry,” she finally offers, carefully wringing her small fingers in her damp lap and staring at the floor.

Kylo sets his jaw and says nothing, forcing her to look up at him. Her eyes are hazel. He’d somehow registered that before, but not to the extent and clarity with which he can see them now, under the bright true white lights of the station. If he crossed his eyes he can imagine that they would shift between green and brown, and they’re startlingly bright even as she frowns up at him in consternation. The smattering of freckles on her nose is distracting, and he looks away again.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She repeats after a moment.

This is awkward for both of them, and who can blame her, even if he’s the one who should totally be offended?

The one bit of luck they’d had this whole trip is that somehow, by some deity's grace, there is a train running. And, by the same grace, it’s scheduled for Dublin. The beauty of trains is that they run on the ground, on their own tracks, and wouldn’t crash and fall from the sky because of a little bit of rain.

A little bit.

When it’s finally time to board Kylo collects his bag and gives hers a look. It sits between them, a clear divide. He extends his hand to take it and Rey gives him a startled look but nods, trying to make up for her previous faux pas. He hoists it up over his shoulder with his and they enter the train, walking all the way back to one of the train cars before he pushes both bags up above their heads onto the overhead rail. He takes the window seat and she follows closely at his side, and Kylo’s a little trapped in place but he doesn’t complain. This one makes up for _her_ being stuck by the window the last time.

“So, uhm…” she begins.

“Yeah?” He starts.

“I really am sorry,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze at all costs. He almost smiles. Her hair’s a shock of wavy frizz now that it’s had time to sit in the empty artificial heat of the station and the train, and she looks exhausted. Helpless girl.

“Okay.” He repeats.

They fall into comfortable silence as the train’s engines roar and he feels the tiny tug of power underneath him when it gears up. They pull up out of the station, looking forward to few hours’ ride, and he sets to look out towards the darkness. He wouldn’t be able to see anything for a few hours yet, but at least this is progress.

The minutes tick by and his mind starts to drift until he feels a thump on his shoulder. Rey’s head’s precariously propped on it. She’d fallen asleep. He looks back out the window, tapping his fingers on his thigh.

It would only be a handful of hours. He’d deposit her in the arms of her Knight in Shining Armor, then he’d turn around and go to Dingle, and everything would be as it should be. At least this would give her a story to tell her children some day.

With a wry smile he rests his head back on his seat and closes his eyes. Perhaps some sleep wouldn’t be such a bad idea.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and Kylo's headspace on the little bar creep scene ;) Also, THESE TWO I CAN'T. Seriously.
> 
> And finally, [here's a map of Kylo's detour](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/147067205545)... he's basically going to be making a giant triangle and going way out of his way. lol. But he's morally obligated to now... right? . . . 
> 
> Comments & concrit always welcome, and thank you all who have taken the time to write me, leave comments and kudos and subscribed to this story. You're beautiful, you.
> 
> Finally, a huge, huge thanks to my beta EjBlaKit for always reading my stuff to make sure I'm not fucking it up. Love you, bebe <3


	9. Ticket Booth

Rey’s woken up by the simultaneous jarring jolt of her body lurching forward, off from a surprisingly warm surface, and by a loud scream too colorful even for her usual sailor mouth. She looks around. Where in the—

Oh, right. On a train in the middle of Ireland.

The grinding of metal on metal as the train screeches to a halt is painful enough for her to cringe, and she clings hard onto her skirt because there’s nothing else for her to grab onto unless she clings to the man sitting beside her, who’s currently rubbing his forehead furiously. He’d been lurched forward and his head had slammed into the seat straight in front of him. That would hurt.

Her mind’s already moved on from his muttered cursing, however. It’s already moved onto the fact that the train has stopped. She leans over Ren to look out the window. It’s pitch black outside. Rey looks up at Ren, and he’s leaned back and is looking at her with raised brows as her whole torso basically hangs over his lap.

“What time is it?” She asks. He frowns, sleepy eyes still half lowered as he takes her in then slowly moves, forcing her to return to her seat.

He digs into his back pocket and pulls out his phone, turning it on and waiting painfully while it comes to life. Rey’s eyes zero in on the little screen. Her phone’s in her bag.

“Three in the morning.”

Three o’clock in the morning. Rey’s lips tighten into a thin line and she looks back out the window. The only other two people in the train car are also staring out into the darkness, trying to see what’s going on. Rey gets up and walks over to the other side of the aisle to check while Ren tracks her with his eyes silently.

A couple of older men with bright orange vests that denote traffic safety step out of a car ahead of theirs and walk up and down the train line, their vests glinting in the darkness against the light of their flashlights. One of them opens up the door to Rey and Ren’s carriage and steps in.

“Hello, everyone. Sorry about the abrupt stop. We had to make an emergency stop and will let you know as soon as we can when we can go on our way.”

Please don’t let this be a delay.

_Please don’t let this be a delay._

The old man steps out of the car, tugging on his ear as another one of his companions shouts something inaudible down to him from far up ahead.

There’s a collection of shouts. First faint, then growing louder as the instructions are passed down.

Rey sits on the vacant two-seater where she’d been looking out the window and leans her head back against the pane. Ren has shifted so one knee is resting on her now empty seat, the other leg securely planted on the floor, as they regard each other.

“What now?” She asks, more to herself than him, but he responds anyway.

“We’ll find out soon,” Ren turns his head to watch people walk up and down the sides of the train.

When the pudgy old man finally hauls himself back up into the train, it’s with a sheepish smile and a small shrug of his shoulder.

“Sorry folks, there are cows on the line.”

Rey stares.

_Cows?_

“Cows?” She repeats her thought. Had she been looking she would have noticed the small twitch of Ren’s lips, no doubt finding the whole thing hilarious, but Rey’s eyes were glued onto the other man’s bright orange vest and his apologetic smile.

“What do you mean cows?” She asks.

The man shrugs again. “Big things, about yay-big?” He intones, spreading his hands and taking a few steps to accommodate from side to side. Ren snorts. “They give milk?”

Rey huffs.

“I know what cows are.” She replies resentfully, uncaring that she sounds childish in that moment. This whole damn trip is turning out to be a disaster. She sighs, and the train worker takes that for her giving up.

“We just have to wait until they move, ma’am. We don’t want them shitting on the tracks, either.”

Rey closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath.

Finn, this is all for Finn.

When had her life turned into this ginormous mess? Finn _better_ accept her proposal or else she would probably self-combust after all of this. When she opens her eyes she offers the man the kindest, most friendly smile she can and nods. The driver tips his hat to her, to Ren, and to the other two passengers with a last word that they would be informed over the speakers when the train got moving. Rey looks at Ren.

He’s fighting a smile.

“Wipe that grin off your face,” she chides with a near growl, but she can’t quite bring herself to be mean to him when she’s still draped in his jacket and had slept for at least four hours against his shoulder. She feels a little better, she has to admit, if cold.

At the thought of being cold, a sneeze breaks. She blinks hard against the watering of eyes and rubs at her nose quickly.

Ugh. Rain. Rain and cold and pain. These were the only things she was starting to associate Ireland with. She had been told it’s a beautiful country. Too bad she has seen nothing of it except rain. Her frustration mounts.

Ren tries to wipe off the smirk but he doesn’t quite manage it. Instead he sits back to a normal position and pats the seat next to him for her to take it. She arches an eyebrow.

“Would you rather sit there by your lonesome, or can we get back to sleeping for a few hours?” He asks, almost playful, but she can see that he’s tired as well. He should be, he’d been chasing after her all night.

Rey bites her lip. She really should say thank you. The man owes her absolutely nothing and yet here he is, looking out for her in the middle of the night, aboard a stopped-up train, because of _cows_. Rey scoots herself out of her seat and walks quietly to his side, sitting next to him again. The warmth of his leg against her bare thighs is a very welcome relief.

“Thank you,” she offers, and he does smile then. A small, kind smile that she’s not sure she’s supposed to see.

“You’re welcome.”

He leans closer, a small offering of his shoulder, and Rey bites her lip again. She’s not used to this. To touching anyone but Finn, and occasionally giving her friends hugs. Her personal bubble is the size of Manhattan and she likes to keep it that way. Still, he’s offering, and he’s warm, and she almost leans in when another sneeze wrenches from her. Rey has just enough time to turn her head out toward the aisle before it comes out, narrowly avoiding sneezing all over Ren. She lets out a long drawn out ‘ _Ughhh’_ that Ren chuckles at. He digs into his pocket and comes out with a piece of napkin, pushing it at her under her nose.

She looks at it.

“You keep napkins in your pockets?” She asks, confused.

Ren shrugs. “I grabbed it during dinner. Never hurts to have one.”

Seriously. What kind of guy—

Still, she can feel a small bead of wetness pooling at the small bridge of her nostrils and she can’t be picky. She grabs it from him gingerly and then turns away to blow her nose. When she’s done with it she looks at it and grimaces. Now what?

“You can put it in the pocket of my jacket,” he says, looking at it with mild distaste.

Rey almost smirks at his trying to be a gentleman despite her germs being all over that napkin. She balls it up to where the germs can’t touch the fabric and jams it into one of the pockets. Then she sighs. Sneezing sure can zap you of energy when you’re already tired. Ren’s shoulder is close enough that if she just tilts her head her temple will connect with it and she can snooze.

She doesn’t know this man. He owes her nothing.

Rey closes her eyes and lets her temple connect with the fabric of his shirt. She feels him move until his head hits the back of his seat with a soft ‘thud,’ and they stay like that until the train starts moving a half hour later. The cows must have walked away without shitting. Her eyes flutter open as the train pulls forward, then closed again, just long enough to notice that Ren is looking down at her. A half hour delay isn’t so bad.

Sleep takes her. Dreams about weddings, a family, and golden afternoons in her little New York City loft are mixed in with the odd memories of hard childhood days, faded and old even in her dreams, only to be replaced by rain.

Her body jolts forward again but this time there’s a large hand at her shoulder, keeping her from bonking her head on the seat in front of her.

“Easy there,” Ren murmurs as she falls back into her seat and Rey looks at him wide eyed, the screech of metal coming to a slow stop ringing in her ears.

“Please don’t tell me…” she starts. Ren frowns.

“There’s another stop.” He finishes her sentence.

_God—_

Rey lets out a frustrated grunt.

“What now? Is it leaves?!” She asks, and Ren chuckles. When she glares at him he schools his face to stillness and shrugs.

“We’ll find out soon enough, I imagine.” He offers helpfully.

Rey leans over him again and Ren leans back to accommodate. The small motion is becoming one more occurrence where she keeps sharing her personal space and he keeps allowing her into his. It barely registers in her mind. It’s no different than him gathering her into his side.

The sky has started to turn _just_ so to where she can see the drivers walking up and down the tracks once more, and this time they don’t come in to tell them that there are cows. Rey watches them as they crouch over puddles of water to inspect the tracks while holding umbrellas, flashing lights under the train to check something she can’t quite see. Ren huffs and the warm air hits her ear.

“We might be here for a while,” he says.

Rey turns her head to look at him.  She’s confronted with warm golden brown eyes that are staring at her face with such intensity she has to look away. Rey shifts, prying herself from her position almost on top of him.

Rey sits still and waits, determined not to let her anxious need to get to Dublin as soon as possible get to her. This might be another half hour delay. An hour total. That wouldn’t be so bad. Rey gets up and pulls out her phone from her bag, stretching just a little more than necessary because curse Ren’s long arms shoving the bag so far back. When she finally pries her phone out there’s a crick in her neck from the pull and she purses her lips.

She turns on her phone. The battery’s half dead but it’s better than nothing. Ren’s looking out the window at the men walking with their big black umbrellas as they check and double check the tracks, the train, anything.

There is no signal. Why was it with this country and having _no signal?!_

Rey takes a deep breath.

_Be logical, Rey. There have been power line outages and downed phone lines from this storm. It’s only logical. Just breathe._

Rey falls back on her seat next to Ren with a grunt. Ren’s still looking out the window.

“There’s someone coming this way,” he informs the air, Rey, and the only other two passengers in the car who’re sitting too far away to hear him properly.

The pudgy train worker with his bright orange vest steps back inside, shaking his umbrella out the door before surveying the occupants of this particular train car.

“Sorry folks,” he begins, and Rey braces for the bad news. “We’re having engine trouble.”

Of course.

Of course they’d be having engine trouble. Why would a train _not_ have engine troubles when she needs it to run smoothly? Rey’s never been one to be prone to bouts of sudden displays of emotion, but she almost lets out a strangled sound in the back of her throat. Ren gives her a very cautious look.

The man leans on the handle of his umbrella after thumping it on the metal floor and lightly shakes out his jacket as well.

“We’re calling for help as we speak, though it might take a little while. You should all make yourselves comfortable and we’ll let you know any news. Otherwise, if you’d rather make the trek, there’s a small town about…eh…a mile from here? Ey, a mile. But it’s raining, so I’d recommend you stay here where it’s nice and warm. Sorry about the delay, folks!”

The man sounds a little too chipper for Rey’s taste. She lets out a long, measured breath, and they sit to wait out the hours.

And they wait.

And wait.

And wait.

By the third hour of just sitting Rey’s about to lose it. Ren, on the other hand, is cool as a cucumber. He’s got his arm propped against the window, staring out at the small bits of rain coming down. It’s finally, _finally_ starting to slow down. Rey stares at the time on her phone. Three hours. She sneezes again, then finally makes up her mind.

“I’m going,” she says, taking off Ren’s jacket and passing it to him. His eyes swivel towards her with a deep frown.

“You’re…going.” Ren deadpans, his jacket draped over his knee. Rey nods.

“There’s a town a mile away. I can grab a cab or something,” she explains.

Pure impulse. She’s been acting on pure impulse and adrenaline. But it’s been three days — four, now, by the look of the sky — that she’s been in this country without Finn even having any _clue_ , and by the look of the crossed out phone signal on her phone, it would be a while longer yet.

Rey stretches back up and grabs her bag, swinging it over her rapidly cooling arms and torso. She already misses his jacket, she’s willing to admit that much. Rey would grab a shirt from her bag but none of them are even remotely warm enough. Stupid, to buy summer clothes without knowing the weather in this godforsaken country.

“Help is coming,” Ren finally speaks, staring at the side of her face. Rey purses her lips.

“Sure, help is coming. In how many hours, though?” She asks tersely, then remembers her manners as she turns to him and gives him a smile. “Thank you for helping me so far. I… I appreciate it. And… sorry about the…you know…” she says, waving a hand in his direction. Ren only looks up at her with an arched brow in determined silence. “I hope your trip goes smoothly. Good luck.”

Rey offers her hand.

Kylo’s eyes slowly turn down towards her outstretched fingers. He looks out the window again for a moment and Rey’s starting to feel really awkward, then he turns to her and gently grasps her hand in his.

It’s startling, how much larger his hand is. It’s warm, so gloriously warm, fingers long and strong around her much more slender ones. Hands that can crush. They hold hers gingerly, though, as if afraid to hurt her by simply shaking her hand. When their shake ends, she gives him one last parting smile before walking out the train car.

And right into the rain.

Thankfully it’s slowed down to a bit of a drizzle, something that’s ridiculously welcome compared to the absolute downpour of earlier. Her clothes had finally dried out just enough that this time they don’t become sopping wet.

The drivers inspecting the engine give her a pitiful look, as if to say _you poor soul_ , and one of them offers her an umbrella but she shakes her head. She wouldn’t take someone else’s umbrella, especially not from someone she doesn’t know. She starts her trek to that village by following the tracks. Had Rey been paying attention she would have realized that about thirty steps behind her is a tall, looming figure following her with a languid stride.

Finally, midway through the mile, she hears her name called out and spins.

Ren.

She stops and stares. He has an umbrella.

When he finally reaches her, it’s with the most amused smirk on his wide, pouty lips. Rey has to look away from it.

“You really are impulsive,” he comments. Rey’s eyes snap back up to him and growl.

“And you’re kind of stalkerish,” she bites back. His smirk grows wider.

“Well, I have an umbrella. I _was_ going to offer but—“ He smarms. Rey cuts him off.

“You’ve been following me this whole time and just _now_ you’re offering?”

Ren shrugs.

“I would have offered it to you on the train but you were so dead set on leaving,” he says in a murmur, as if that should explain it. “You also look kind of adorable when you’re half soaked.”

Rey’s nostrils flare and she almost takes a step back before she realizes he’s just trying to tease. Still, though, it sets her on edge. He had been _so_ nice earlier.

“Are you just having a bad week, are you enjoying this, or are you just predisposed to assholery?” She asks, pointing a finger at his face. He looks at it and his smirk turns into a tiny smile. Small, but sincere. When his eyes find hers again, he wipes it off his face.

“Maybe a little bit of everything,” he admits, voice low and rumbling, shrugging his shoulders for the billionth time. “If you weren’t so quick to try and bolt, perhaps you wouldn’t be standing here like a small wet duckling.”

Rey tilts her head.

He’s definitely teasing.

So she lets out a huff of breath and falls in step with him. Ren changes hands on the umbrella handle so she’s mostly covered. She notices that his shoulder’s getting wet again. Perhaps he’s predisposed to assholery, but then he does something like that. What a strange man.

So she steals another glance up at him. He’s _so_ tall. How is it legal for any man to be that tall and broad? She gulps and sets her eyes ahead, and the trek continues in silence. Rey’s mind is already making plans about getting a cab and continuing on to Dublin when they finally arrive at the ‘village.’

Or…

It’s more like five houses surrounding the train station stop. She stares, gaping.

“Are you kidding me…?” She asks, looking around. There is most definitely not a cab service here. Even Ren has the good grace to be absolutely shocked.

He lets out a snort. “Honestly, at this point I’m sure someone must be messing with us. This is not the kind of stuff you just make up.”

He lets out a breathy grunt and places his hand on the small of her back to guide Rey forward.

“Come on,” he urges, “There’s someone in the station.”

They walk side by side and enter a small, very warm station stop where a man of maybe sixty, with salt and pepper hair that’s mostly salt, is currently looking down at a screen, humming to himself some Irish song Rey has never heard of. When they finally walk up to the edge of the booth, the old man looks up and gives them a bright beam of a smile.

“Well hello there!” The booth man says, “How are ya doing? So early for anyone to stop by! Say, the train won’t be here for another fifteen minutes.”

“That’s actually where we come from,” Rey pipes in, giving him a smile, “You see, the train’s stopped in its tracks. Engine trouble.”

“Oh, boy. Oh boy, oh boy, well that won’t do.” The man says, inspecting Rey and Ren, “that could take hours yet. Say, where are you headed, young ones?”

“Dublin,” both Rey and Ren respond at the same time. They look at each other.

The old man chuckles.

“I see, I see! Well, you’re in good hands! But first let me…” the man starts mumbling as he looks down a list that Rey can’t quite see because the booth is too far up. Ren has no trouble seeing it. The old man brings up a phone to his ear and dials a number, then starts whistling while he waits.

“Aye! Good of the morning to ya,” he greets. “Say, there’s a train stopped on the tracks near…”

Rey tunes the man out as he starts giving our coordinates and track names and lines, and a whole lot of other information that Rey can’t be bothered to remember. She shifts her weight a little bit while Ren stands statue still.

“Oh… Oh dear,” the old man says, and Rey’s eyes snap up.

No.

Not _Oh Dear._ Those words _never_ came followed by good news. She leans forward and rests her hands on the edge of the booth’s small window.

“I see…” The old-man whose name Rey really should ask about says, and she purses her lips. “Alright, alright. I have two kids here,” he gives Rey and Ren a look, brows rising a little as he takes them in with a small smile. “Said they were from that train. I’ll let them know. Thank you.”

He hangs up, and Rey holds in her breath.

Please no more bad news.

Please.

“Well, I’ve got some bad news. The engine’s dead. They’ve sent some engineers over but it won’t be moving for a while. Not sure how that engine died, I mean…” the booth man starts rambling on, eyes going far away, “always unlucky to travel by train on Saturdays…”

Ren turns his head slowly to look at her. Rey takes in a deep breath.

“Excuse me,” she says through clenched teeth, then turns on her heel and stalks out of the station. The boothman and Ren both watch her go as Rey swings the door open, then lets it shut behind her and stands out on the platform.

When she finally screams at the skies, all the men hear is a muffled _“WHY?!”_

Rey clenches her hands into fists at her sides. She finally lets her eyes fall back down from the drizzling skies as the little droplets threaten to fall into her line of vision. Instead she stares out at the ridiculously green, ridiculously damp, ridiculously beautiful landscape that she can’t bother to appreciate. She takes in a deep breath, and another, before unclenching her fists and returning back inside, looking far more composed than she feels.

At the look on her face Ren immediately bites on the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking or laughing.

“How long?” She asks with a carefully measured tone once she stops in front of the ticket booth.

“Well miss,” he starts, then scratches his little beard. “Once upon a time that that track would have had more than one train going but… Nowadays it only runs the one. Not too many people taking trains, you see… and they’re pulling the engine off the the track so they can lift up and fix whatever’s wrong. The other passengers were already sent this way to look for accommodations.”

“Accomo—“ Rey huffs, “ _That long?_ How long does it take to fix an engine?!” She asks, ready to stomp back all the way there and start trying to help.

She probably could, too. She’d had to deal with enough electrical wiring and had done enough engineering and tinkering in her youth to be able to at least provide _some_ help. Ren is very quiet. Smart man.

“Don’t know, lass,” the man offers apologetically, “but I do know that once those other people get into the village they’ll take up any space open! You two are in luck, you’re early. As is,” he starts, already taking on the voice of a man trying to sell something, “I happen to know where the best Bed and Breakfast is this side of the tracks! I should know, my wife runs it!”

Booth man laughs and Ren bites on his lower lip, but then the older man stops dead in his tracks, all laughter dying, as if he remembered something.

“Wait but, you two are married, right?” He asks.

Rey gapes and Ren clears his throat loudly, probably trying to clear out a choking sound.

“What?” she asks, incredulous. Why would he—

“Well, I mean. I don’t mind that sort of thing so much, you know — I’m old fashioned but the world moves ahead and…” he scratches his little beard, “But my wife. Now my wife. She won’t have anyone if they’re not proper married.”

Before Rey can start in on a rant Ren places a hand on her lower back again and pulls her closer, and Rey’s too stupefied to even stop him.

“We’re married,” he says with a sweet smile. Rey gapes at him as well, then has the sense to clamp her mouth shut and paste on a smile.

“Just married,” she gives, leaning back into Ren. Was this going to become routine? Because it certainly is starting to feel like it. “We’re on our honeymoon, actually,” she sighs, and Ren tightens his hold as he wraps his arm around her waist. Rey resists the urge to stomp on his foot.

_Why me?_

The short man opens the door to his booth and steps out, and he’s surprisingly short. Shorter than Rey, that’s for sure, but he beams up at them like a little man come out of a fairytale, far too bouncy and happy for six in the morning.

“Well good! If that’s the case follow me Mister and Mrs—“

“Ren.”

“Jakken.”

…

The booth man stares at them and Ren clears his throat, squeezing Rey’s waist. _Stay silent_.

“Ren,” Ren corrects, giving a pleasant smile,  the low rumble in his ribcage pressing against her arm.  “Just married. It’s a bit of an adjustment.”

The booth man cackles and snorts at the same time. “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he says. “I’m Martin, by the way. Are you two new to Ireland?”

“Yes,” they both reply at the same time. Only one of them is being truthful.

“Well follow me, Mister and Mrs. Ren,” Martin intones in a cheery voice, “Not like I’ll be able to work much with no train running today. I’ll take you over to the wife! Get you out of this cold, no?”

He gives Rey’s half damp clothes a once over. “And a warm shower and meal, by the looks of it. Might as well make you comfortable!” Martin turns away from them and digs his keys out of his pocket, setting about locking up the booth and looking for the key to the main entrance next.

Rey gives the tall, looming man beside her a look. She narrows her eyes at him and he does the same in turn. They stand there glaring just a little longer before Martin turns around, at which point they both paste on pleasant smiles at each other like a truly brand new married couple.

 _Heart eyes_ , Poe called it. He laughed at Finn and Rey and told them they had heart eyes when they looked at each other. That had been early on in their relationship. Eventually the heart eyes only became something Rey got teased about. She never heard Poe tease Finn.

Rey gives Ren heart eyes and he leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead, then urges her on to walk as Martin gives them a pleased smile.

The bed and breakfast is exactly a four minute walk from the train station. It’s tucked into the back, away from the other houses. Rey notes that there are indeed more than just five houses, but they’re all hidden by vegetation — sleepy little cottages surrounded by nothing but greens. A couple of houses down she sees a rounded pen with ducks nibbling at the ground and a little girl tossing out grain. Early morning chores.

It looks so different from Rey’s early morning as a kid, when she’d mostly spent it locked in her room until she heard Plutt leave for the day before braving the rest of the tiny cramped basement apartment she shared with the Plutts. Mrs. Plutt would already be gone by then, off to her laundry job.

While Martin walks a few steps ahead, gabbing at them over his shoulder about the beautiful little town they were in, Rey turns to Ren and narrows her eyes again.

“Did you _have_ to kiss me?” She hisses at him, low enough only for Ren’s ears.

He arches an eyebrow.

“We’re supposed to be madly in love and married. Or would you rather sleep with the ducks?” He asks, tilting his head towards the girl tossing grain.

Rey lets out an indignant grunt.

“I doubt we’ll be here until nightfall,” she huffs. Ren doesn’t respond to that.

Once they enter the small little Bed and Breakfast — a small cottage that can’t possibly have more than three rooms, really — they’re immediately barraged by a stocky woman with bright, bright golden hair and an even brighter smile. She walks towards them with arms spread out as if to hug them. Rey immediately takes a step closer to Ren rather than do what she wants to do, which is to take a step back. Ren holds her by the waist again and gives her a reassuring squeeze. That gesture is slowly starting to become familiar. She relaxes minimally.

“Well look at you two dears!” The woman starts, voice loud and boisterous and kind, “But my word, you’re all so damp and frumpled! Martin! What took you so long to bring them here—“

Then the woman turns on them.

“You _are_ a couple, right?” She asks, narrowing her eyes.

“Yes,” they both reply, before Ren gives a charming smile. Rey didn’t know he could even do such a thing.

“Just married a handful of days ago, actually. You wouldn’t believe the time we’ve had,” he says, tone light and pained, clearly milking it for all it’s worth. “We were hoping you’d let us stay at your lovely home for a little while. Isn’t that right, Sweetheart?”

His head turns down to look at Rey as if she had hung the moon for him. Rey smiles a sweet smile. The woman before them immediately melts. Ren knew how to turn on the charm, that’s for sure.

“Absolutely, darling,” Rey coos, before turning to the matron turning giddy over Ren’s heart eyes. “If it’s not too much of an imposition, of course.”

The woman takes Rey’s frizzy hair in, her damp clothes, her bare legs pimpling with goosebumps even in the warmth of the house. She immediately softens towards Rey’s helpless look.

“Oh you sweet child,” she croons, walking towards Rey and grabbing her by the arm. Rey’s eyes widen at Ren and his lips jerk up slightly but he lets her go, giving his lower lip a slight lick while the woman talks, “Let’s get you into something warm! Martin, dear, why don’t you show Mister—“

“Ren,” the tall raven-haired man offers with a kind, patient smile.

“Why don’t you show Mister Ren their room while I take this lovely little lady to get warm?”

“Yes, Dear,” Martin says like a well trained husband, and the last glance she gets of Martin and Ren is as they walk away towards the stairs.

Rey is bodily dragged towards a bathroom where she’s given a big, fluffy towel and told to undress and get in the tub, that the water should be hot and she would make Rey’s _husband_ bring her some clothes. Tea would be served once she gets out. The door slams closed behind her, leaving Rey staring.

What in the world…

She looks at the claw-foot tub.

Her skin immediately feels as if she’s been drenched in ice water and she shivers.

A hot bath wasn’t that bad of an idea after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, you didn't expect it to get easier any time soon, did you? 
> 
> As always, a gazillion thanks to EjBlaKit for being the best beta a girl could ask forrrrr~ you're amazing. Everyone should go read her stories.
> 
> Poor Rey... I mean, she's not usually like this, but seriously? so much a girl can take, man. 
> 
> And finally, thank you to Isha-Ren for the ideas for train stops! The cows certainly were in line with the story and the movie, so I nabbed it ;) Gotta love 'em cows. And leaves. And random unexplained delays. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! as always, comments are my writing fuel. I'd love to hear what you guys think so far :)


	10. Towels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is a trigger of past abuse for Rey here. Please keep this in mind if you read ahead. Otherwise, skip to notes below for a summary.

Rey is led away by the boisterous woman who had so very quickly started calling them both darlings, and Kylo shakes his head. The utter look of panic on Rey’s face had been priceless, really. She did _not_ appreciate being hauled away.

Martin makes to grab Rey’s bag where she’d dropped it on the floor. Kylo bends over quickly and snatches it before he can. The old man gives him a hesitant smile, then a well natured shrug when Kylo pulls her bag over his shoulder to rest against his, accidentally tangling the straps together.

“Right this way,” Martin prompts, leading the way while rubbing his little beard, Kylo three steps behind.

He has to curl into himself in order to go up the steps, and his shoulders keep bumping against the wall. He’s too big for these stairs. It makes him feel like he’s trying to squeeze himself through a barbie doll house. It’s a little uncomfortable, to say the least.

Theirs is the last door down the small hall. Martin gives him a wide smile as he pushes it open.

“Here we go!” He chirps, ushering Kylo in with a wave of a hand. It’s not a tiny room, but it’s certainly not big, either. Just enough room for a bed, a couple of bedside tables with old lamps that look like they haven’t been updated in at least a decade, a tall closet to the side and, past a filmy curtain, what he can only imagine is a shower stall. He plops both her bag and his on the ridiculously small bed — that’s going to make for some uncomfortable conversations later — then looks around. He walks towards the shower stall, pulling the curtain aside.

The shower head will probably spray at his chest level. He’d have to squat down to be able to wash his hair.

_Perfect._

He hadn’t told Rey that chances are they would be spending the night here. Dead engines in the middle of absolute nowhere were not a quick fix.

The bed and breakfast lady comes bouncing up the stairs with two giant white towels in her hands, flouncing into the room with a big smile. Martin had left while Kylo was inspecting the bathroom.

“Oh my dear, good to see you getting settled in!” She coos as she regards him, her cheeks turning a little pink. She’s small, if wide, and he has to tuck his chin in slightly to be able to really look at her. “I just settled your wife in for a nice hot bath in the downstairs bathroom! Say, you should grab some clothes for her. She should be done in a little while! I’ll bring you to her in a little bit.”

“Uh…” Kylo starts, for once entirely lost on words. The woman wanted him to what? He stares at her like she’s grown a second head but she simply arches her eyebrows and tilts her head back, trying her hardest to look down her nose at him. She doesn’t accomplish it well. Too short.

“Sure,” he adds, remembering he’s supposed to be a newlywed totally in love with his wife. “Uhm,” he adds, clearing his throat. “Thank you, Mrs—“

“Oh, call me Penny!” She says, swatting at him as if she’s known him all her life. “And no worries! Here.”

Penny shoves a pair of big, ridiculously white and fluffy towels at him. He looks at them and frowns. Why two? When he looks up at her she’s giving him an innocent smile before she flails her arms.

“But go on, go on! Grab some clothes!” She says, “I’ll be downstairs once you’re done! I’ll lead you to the bathroom, alright dear?”

Kylo stands there frowning as Penny flounces right back out the room, leaving him to gape. He shakes his head a couple of seconds later when his senses come back to him. Grab clothes for Rey.

Grab…

He stares at her bag. She _hates_ people touching her bag. She had barely allowed him to pick it up just to carry it, and this woman wanted him to go _digging_ in it? Kylo purses his lips.

That’s right. Married couple.

Married couples sometimes ruffled through their partner’s belongings, looking for things, or trying to be romantic by bringing them clothes while they took a shower. He starts cursing in a murmur as he turns towards the bag. This is _not_ what he’d intended when he’d brought her here. He’s supposed to be a newlywed completely in love with his little brunette, beautiful wife.

He could just take the towels with him. But then Rey would have to walk all the way from the bathroom to the upstairs bedroom in nothing but a towel, and wouldn’t that be uncomfortable for literally everyone involved?

Kylo opens the bag with jerky fingers and grabs the first few things that are on top, making extra careful to grab the underwear — a lacy thing that makes his heart stammer a little too uncomfortably — while his hand is wrapped under a red tank top that has far too many straps, never actually touching the lacy fabric and dropping it like a snake the second it comes out of the bag. He notices denim-like fabric and grabs that, too. Jeans.

He slowly collects it all around one of the towels, again, making very careful work of not touching her underwear, and zips Rey’s bag closed again.

He grabs the bundle and pads downstairs, scrunching in on himself to avoid banging his head or shoulders on anything. It’s been about fifteen minutes by then, and Rey might or might not be done with her bath, so he looks around and follows the smell of food towards the kitchen, looking for his hosts.

He finds Martin bent over a large pot of something that smells semi edible while Penny chops vegetables.

Kylo clears his throat.

“Oh there you are!” Penny chimes, wiping her hands on her floral apron as she rolls her little ankles once before walking towards him. “Come on now, we’ll go get your pretty wife.”

Kylo follows, feeling more and more uncomfortable as she takes him down a long, narrow hall. He looks to both sides and can see a few doors, but they’re mostly closed, and Penny is chattering ahead about how wonderful it is to have newlyweds visit. It’s been such a long time, and she does enjoy making it a wonderful experience for the new lovebirds. And is there anything Kylo thinks his wife would like specifically made for breakfast in bed the next morning, if they were staying? _Are_ they staying?

Kylo barely listens but then they’re coming up to the door and he steps up, ready to knock to allow Rey to prepare — not knowing that Rey had heard the voices down the hall and was _just getting up and turning around —_ when his pudgy little over-eager host swings the door right open.

He almost drops the towels and the clothes.

_Jesus fucking—_

Rey is standing in the middle of the tub naked as the day she was born as she lets out a loud scream then—

They both notice Penny, watching Kylo’s face intently. The woman had set it up. Rey’s lip is slowly quivering and he narrows his eyes, trying really hard not to look at _anywhere_ other than her face, but he’d already gotten an eyeful of soft skin and pert breasts and… he breathes in deeply, his nostrils flaring.

Perhaps that’s the reaction Penny had been looking for because next thing he knows he’s being shoved into the small bathroom and having the door closed on him with a _“Have a lovely bath!”_ from Penny that rings hollow in his ears.

The whole thing takes less than a second. It feels like years.

Kylo immediately glues his eyes to the floor as he shoves the towels in her direction.

“ _Fucking hell!_ ” is the first expletive that comes to mind, but it’s quickly followed by a plethora of others as they flourish in his panicked brain. Rey snatches the towel from him and her clothes fall out along with the second towel, and that’s when he hears it.

The muffled, strangled sound that could be a half sob, a half scream. His eyes widen and he dares look up at her before jerking his eyes back down. There are towels on the floor.

Her breathing comes hard and quick and Kylo starts panicking.

“Rey?” He asks, tone tense, “Rey. Are you covered?” He holds up a hand to further block his view. There’s a small whimper.

“Sweetheart I need you to verbally tell me if you’re covered.” He speaks, and it starts hitting him all at the same time.

He’s seen this reaction.

He’s seen this reaction over and over and over every time a lost soul would stumble into his office to give a recount of their abuse. He starts cursing, and this time it has nothing to do with the eyeful of skin he’d gotten.

He should have known.

“Rey,” he repeats, swallowing as he waits. She lets out a soft, stuttered assent.

“I’m going to look up now,” he informs, keeping his hands where she can see them. “Can I look up now?”

She assents again after a long pause. She’s rooted to her spot in the water, towel tightly clutched against her chest, staring at him with impossibly wide eyes.

She’s reacting. She’s reacting the same way somebody with a rough past would have if they’d just been walked in on at their most vulnerable. Rey swallows.

“Rey…” he starts, palms out, and she flinches. “I’m going to pick up this second towel and wrap it around you. Is that okay?” He asks with his best, most placating tone. He’d perfected this tone. He only hopes it will work now.

Rey stares hard at him. Kylo curses an extra twenty colorful swear words in a heartbeat inside his brain. She gives a tiny nod.

Kylo walks towards the towel he’d dropped on the floor and picks it up, gingerly approaching her, and he doesn’t miss the flinch. He bites hard on his tongue, then gently, so very gently, unfolds the big towel and wraps it around her shoulders like the sort of safety blanket they give traumatized victims at the scene of a crime.

He backs away as fast as humanly possible. Her eyes fall on her clothes on the floor. Kylo turns towards the corner of the bathroom, giving her her privacy, and lowers his head against the wall. He takes a deep breath.

“Rey…” he murmurs, and he can hear her having an emotional breakdown in the tub.

Rey’s raspy breathing, hiccupy and uneven as she tries to bring it painfully through her nose, out through her mouth, fills the room. It’s faint, the sound of lungs trying to be restarted and refusing to engage, dragging through her teeth when her nose can’t bring in enough air. Kylo curses to himself.

“Rey can you hear me, sweetheart?”

He should have known.

Her flinching whenever touched.

Her locking the bathroom door.

Her avoidance of prolonged eye contact.

Her shifting away from him, then only very begrudgingly accepting his proximity when she needed help.

Her constant wariness about him giving her anything, and wondering if he would ask for anything in return.

He’d seen it a million times.

He swallows back another curse. Penny’s barging in on her had made Rey trigger, and all he can hear is her strangled attempts at breathing.

“Rey?” He asks again, hands splayed at his side, always where she can see them, voice calm and soothing. “Please respond.”

Rey lets out a soft sound again, and it’s a yes. She’s frozen in place, paralyzed, like so many people who end up having to confront their fears.

“Okay,” he explains, “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to stay _right_ here, and I will not move a muscle, and you can get out of the tub and get changed. Is that okay? You can get dressed and stand there as long as you need, and I will not move until you tell me to.”

There’s silence. He almost wants to bang his head against the wall.

He’d been so wrapped up in trying to keep her from becoming a victim of assault, in his own little amusement at her constant defiance, that he hadn’t thought to analyze her behavior, hadn’t taken the time to notice she’s a victim herself. Of what sort of assault, he’s not sure, but by her reaction, it’s not pretty.

He hears water slush around. She’s moving. He lets out a soft breath and stands exactly where he promised he’d be, hearing fabric move as she hurriedly slips pieces of clothing on. Her breathing slows down the more clothes she manages to slip into, but Kylo doesn’t dare look. They stand there for a long time until she finally speaks.

Her voice is a chip of ice.

“You touched my things.”

Kylo cringes, visibly flinches.

“I only grabbed what was necessary. It was me or have the woman touch them,” he explains. “I am so very sorry.”

More silence. Kylo looks up at the ceiling, noticing the small little bit of yellow stain at the very spot where the ceiling met the walls in the corner.

“You still touched them. Without my permission,” she bites in a small hiss. Kylo bites his cheek.

“I know. I apologize.”

The minutes stretch on, which is a good thing, because Rey lets out a long, measured breath.

“Turn around,” she speaks, and her voice is regaining some of the assured tone he’s come to associate with her.

“Are you sure?”

She’d rebounded quickly.

Calming herself down isn’t new to her.

That almost hurts to think about. How long?

“Yes,” she replies, voice calm.

Kylo turns around very, very slowly, avoiding looking at her until she asks him to. When she does, another sign that she’s at least talked to someone, Kylo swallows.

“I am so very sorry,” he repeats, and he’s apologizing for much more than just this incident. He should have _known_. It is his job to know.

She nods, looking out the tiny window. The day’s pale light is slowly giving way to sunlight.

“We can go, right now. We can find a different place,” he offers. “Just say the word.”

Rey turns to look at him then, and she watches him for a very long time. There’s several long feet of space between them, and Kylo presses himself against the wall, about as far back as he can stay from where Rey stands with hair still dripping onto the almost bare shoulders of her summer shirt. She inspects him as she would a specimen on the table, and he allows her to. He has no right to be in this bathroom.

“She set us up,” she finally speaks, lips thinning. “She thinks we’re on our honeymoon, and she set us up.”

She points to a third, unused towel. Kylo had not needed to bring her one. Kylo glues his eyes to his hands.

Then there’s laughter.

It’s panicky and shuddery and just this side of hiccupy, but it’s laughter, and so his eyes fly up to her face. Her eyes are a little damp.“We can go,” he offers again. Rey shakes her head.

“If you haven’t noticed, there’s exactly like ten other houses in this place and none other had a sign that read Bed and Breakfast,” she says, and he frowns. She’d bounced back extremely fast. So, professional help, then. Kylo gulps down empty air again.

“Are you alright?” He asks, voice soft, the same sort of tone he used with so many teenage girls who started falling apart next to their parents inside his office. “Do you want me to do anything?”

Rey lets out a rattly breath that makes his chest constrict. Then she shakes her head and looks him dead in the eyes.

“Not touch my clothes, for one,” she states. Kylo nearly gives himself a crick in his neck from how quickly he sets to nodding, then giving verbal assent. Rey smiles.

She looks around the small room, at the clawfoot tub’s sudsy water glinting in the pale morning sunshine, then at the towels. At the white hexagonal tile and the little antique flower vase full of dried flowers and herbs.

“Thank you,” she speaks, and Kylo stops breathing. She’s apologizing. Offering him her thanks is an apology, and he cringes. Rey continues, “For, you know…”

He nods again then slowly moves towards the door and opens it. She gives him a cautious look before squaring her shoulders and walking forward. It brings her ridiculously close to him. He watches her like a hawk.

If he thought he’d take her to Dublin so that she wouldn’t be assaulted, he’s _definitely_ not letting her out of his sight now. When she turns to look at him and gives him a faint smile, he frowns.

“So, what’s for breakfast?” She asks, trying to change the topic. Kylo very carefully keeps two feet behind her at all times.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” He asks, giving the back of her head a pointed look. Rey stops and he almost jerks back to avoid physical contact, but she reaches around and grabs him by his shirt to steady him.

“I’m fine. Turns out my husband knows how to treat a lady.”

Kylo’s eyes flutter just a hair before he focuses on her entirely, taking in every plane of her face, every small brow hair, every single stray strand that’s just starting to curl from her bath. “We can go elsewhere.”

Rey shakes her head, but she seems to appreciate the offer. The next smile comes a little easier.

“We’ll just give them hell for it. What do you say?”

Kylo arches an eyebrow.

“You’re joking,” he deadpans. Rey pinches her button nose.

“Only just a tiny bit, but not really.”

He regards her anew. Rey Jakken, girl he’s known for three days and some change, has two little horns hiding somewhere. He shakes his head.

What has he gotten himself into?

____________________

Kylo keeps his hands to himself except for when he absolutely must put on an intense session of a public display of affection. Rey’s acting skills are top notch, because she behaves as though she’d had the best of baths with her husband, giving him coy little smiles that sometimes make his heart stutter for all the wrong reasons, especially in the face of this new realization. She leans into him as they eat cranberry scones and sip on their drinks, and Rey teases him over his weak tea - asking him to point his pinky just for show - when compared to her strong black coffee. He snorts and complies, and it seems to please their hosts greatly.

The second Penny and Martin clear the table and walk away with the dishes, though, Kylo drops his hand. Rey gives him a shy half smile and stares at her cup of coffee.

“About…” she starts, and Kylo shakes his head hard.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. You do not owe me or anybody else an explanation,” he states, clearly emphasizing every word so there is no mistaking it for anything else. Rey lets out a relieved sigh and nods.

Then she turns around, grabs a linen napkin in a rush and sneezes into it, away from him. Kylo frowns, and Rey, as if sensing what he’s about to say, waves him away before stealing his half eaten scone.

At least she has an appetite.

They fall into companionable silence for the next few hours. When the sun finally goes up around noon, and they’re still sitting at the now vacant dinner table, Martin comes around to tell them that the train’s still being worked on. Sorry, folks, but it seems like you two might be in for a long one, and would you consider staying for the night? Rey stiffens and Kylo gives her a pointed glance, asking silently again if she wants to leave, but she shakes her head at him. Kylo lifts himself up with a sigh and follows Martin.

“We might as well,” he replies lightly. “Do you take a card or would you prefer cash?” He had plenty in his wallet.

Martin’s fine with just a card.

“Leaves a paper trail, you see. Taxes,” the man explains, that last word coming out with the unsavory tone of a man who disliked his tax rates. Kylo nods noncommittally, keeping a close eye on Rey where she sits nursing her now awfully cold coffee.

“Will there be any more visitors?” Kylo asks. Martin shrugs.

“There’s an italian couple staying here but they’ve taken out of town for the week! Should be back tonight by dinner, if I remember correctly. Penny’s dead set on cooking tripe. Some new recipe she got off the internets.”

Kylo makes a face. He hears a choked grunt from Rey.

Nope. Definitely not tripe.

“I can cook,” he offers, not knowing exactly where that came from. Both Rey and Martin turn to look at him.

“You can?” Martin asks, and he can almost see the same question on Rey’s face. She arches an eyebrow at him, he arches one back.

_What?_

Rey’s lips quirk up and she turns her eyes back to her drink.

_That’s what I thought._

He lets out a small huff then pulls out his wallet and hands over his card. When he comes back to the table Rey shoots him a dirty look.

“You have to stop doing that,” she hisses under her breath as they listen to Penny and Marvin coo at each other. Turns out the old couple were _very_ into their significant others. Rey pinches her nose.

“I got you into this mess,” he hisses back, “let me at least try and make up for it, will you?”

Rey stops short from her nose pinch and mock gag noises to look at him. Her face goes blank and she studies him with sharp, quick hazel eyes, making it rather hard to look away. The light coming from the window sets her hair on fire, a beautiful golden halo reflecting off loose strands and stray hairs, and he can see himself reflected in her irises. Somewhere inside him a heart string tugs, humming, and Kylo forces himself to swallow.

She gifts him with a small smile then and returns to her half empty mug, thumbing the handle absentmindedly. She’d allow him this. Kylo nods to himself, smiling even when she can’t see it. He looks around. They’ve been left alone. Kylo steals a glance at Rey.

He can’t help himself.

She seems oblivious to it, though, and soon enough Martin is barreling back into the room to hand Kylo his card back. Her eyes swing up to the man and her cheeks flush. She addresses Martin.

“Say, are your phones working? We haven’t had a cellphone signal in days. I would like to call my—“ she stops, realizing she’d been just shy of saying ‘ _boyfriend_ ’ before she amends, “parents.”

Martin gives her a wide smile.

“Oh sure! We’ve been lucky. Very lucky, ey. Our lines are still somehow operational. Come right this way, lass! I hear two towns over they got this huge tree that fell and they’re still dealing—”

Rey gets up from her chair to follow Martin. Before he can react, Rey leans down and places a soft kiss on his cheek.

“Be right back, darling. I’ll give mom your regards.”

It burns where her lips had touched.

He leans back into his seat, wondering what he got himself into as the last of her red strappy summer shirt disappears around the corner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. AM. SORRY.  
> I know you guys wanted this to be hilarious but, if anyone knows me and my writing, I can only do straight up fluff for so long ;o; <3 so ... Enjoy? hah. Ugh.
> 
> Still, it needed to be done. This shit show is nowhere near over. 
> 
> A note on the warning above: Rey gets walked in on in the bathroom thanks to obscenely annoying bed and breakfast lady meddling, which triggers her to freeze and hyperventilate. Kylo handles it with a lot of tact, but again, it's a very vulnerable thing for Rey. If you'd like to go ahead and read, please do so. Otherwise, know that you do _not_ need to read this chapter, as Kylo  & Rey will eventually discuss this without, you know, reliving the specific moment.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to all for your lovely support, comments, kudos, subscriptions, bookmarks, shares and just overall enthusiasm for this story. I hope you've liked it so far! 
> 
> Always indebted to my beautiful, lovely, caring, always generous EjBlaKit for giving me her time and indulging my crazy. Love you <3
> 
> IMPORTANT PROP:  
> [Rey's strappy shirt.](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/147558561030/chapter-11-reys-tanktop-in-red)


	11. Vegetables

Rey’s heart is still hammering at erratic intervals. She throws a look back at Ren through a small window. He’s sitting at the table that’s obviously too small for him, worrying over his credit card as he flips it over and over for something to do with his hands, bathed in early afternoon light. Her lip catches between her teeth, then Rey picks up the phone.

Finn’s number is burned into the back of her mind. It had been for years.

Thankfully there’s a ring. She sucks in a breath.

Finally.

On the third ring, there’s a voice. Finn’s voice.

“Hello?” He asks, curious and open, his usual demeanor. He never turned down callers he didn’t know, never yelled at telemarketers, never chastised people for dialing the wrong number. He was Finn, and she had counted on it when she’d called. “Who is this?”

“FINN!” she squeaks into the line. “Finn, it’s Rey! Oh, thank God.”

There’s a beat of silence.

 _“Peanut?”_ Rey can hear the sounds of people talking in the back about work, _“Why are you calling me from an unidentified numb—“_

She hears him move away from his phone as his voice gets a little distant. Then it comes back in a second. “ _An Irish number?!”_

He sounds dumbfounded. Rey grins.

This.

This is why she’d put up with everything she had.

“YES!” she says, pressing the receiver closer to her ear. “Yes! I wanted to surprise you!”

 _“PEANUT!”_ There’s delighted laughter from the other side and Finn immediately starts talking in a rush the way he does when he gets excited. _“Wait but, where are you? When did you get here? Are you at the airport?! I’ll go pick you up!”_

Rey grins, eyes crinkling. From the window she catches a glimpse of Ren, who must have heard her delighted squeals. She shoots him a friendly smile then returns her eyes to the phone hanging on the wall. “Oh Finn, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through, but no, I’m not in Dublin. I’m in…uh…”

She’s in… She doesn’t know exactly where she is. She bites her lip.

“Well, I’m on _my way_ to Dublin. I should be able to get there soon? I have to find a ride first.”

 _“Wait, you have to…”_ Finn starts, then stops, and she can almost see the crinkle of brows as he frowns, suddenly confused. Rey interrupts.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you when I get there, okay? Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice, Finn!”

Poe’s voice comes from the other side, shouting at Finn to hurry up and come have beers with them. Poe must have flown in early. She smiles. Her friend would be around to see her proposal.

 _“You too, Peanut. Take care getting here, alright, Rey? Call me_ immediately _.”_

He makes her promise. Rey’s a little too delighted at finally having made contact with the one constant person in her life. She’d promise him the world in that moment, all thoughts of uncomfortable discussions about babies back in her loft completely forgotten.

They exchange a few more pleasantries and Rey’s riding the high when she returns to Ren, all thoughts of that horrible bathroom experience put behind in her delight. He’s watching her patiently, his head tilted almost adorably as he takes her in with an arched eyebrow.

“I take it he approved?” He asks, and Rey grins.

“He’s excited I’m here,” she provides, floating on a little bit of cloud nine. Ren gives her a small smile and a nod.

“Well, it’s certainly nice to see you smiling,” he says, voice low and somewhat… relieved? She shakes her head.

He’s stuck on the bathroom incident. She sighs, a bit of her happy cloud dissipating as she takes a seat next to him. He’d been kind, looking after her and repeatedly apologizing, and despite her displeasure at him touching her clothes, Rey had had enough hours to realize that it hadn’t been his fault. She could deal with this. She’d dealt with Plutt all her life. She’d dealt with greasy men who wanted things from her all her life. It had been nice to find one that didn’t, and he’s a perfect stranger.

She’d been taken by surprise. Her brain had shut down and Rey’s body had tensed to run, naked as the day she was born, if necessary. The moment had only lasted a second, and Rey knew he’d seen _all of her_ , yet when the door had shut he’d immediately turned around and…

He’d turned around and talked her through calming down. She only knew one other person who could do that. Her therapist. He’s dealt with this before.

His immediate response to make himself nonthreatening as he faced the wall, verbally requesting acknowledged permission to every one of his movements, had been the one thing she’d needed in order to break free of the choking fear and terror that’d held her by the throat.

She gives him a bright smile, refusing to allow the incident to dampen her mood. She could deal with this. She’s seeing Finn soon. She could worry about the repercussions of this later.

“What, you mean you don’t enjoy me being helpless, crabby and _impulsive_?” Rey teased. She could laugh about it now, now that she’d had contact with Finn.

Ren snorts but his eyes twinkle a little.

“Helpless duckling,” he murmurs.

Just as she’s about to retort with something about his jerkface manners, Martin barrels right in with a small hand shovel in his hand.

“Ah! I see you two are still here! What’re you doing? Come outside, come outside! This is the first bit of sunshine we’ve had in _days!_ Don’t want to miss it now, do ya?”

Ren and Rey look at each other, and Ren gives her a small shrug, stretching his limbs like tree branches reaching out. When he comes to stand next to her, Rey smiles. He’s so big in such a small house. Ren seems hyperaware of his size in the room, flinching away from furniture and the mantel of the fireplace as if scared to break something by brushing into it, immediately relaxing and decompressing once they reach the fresh air outside.

They follow Penny’s off-key singing all the way to the back where Rey and Ren find her bent over a little plot of land, fastidiously pulling out weeds. Martin’s over to the other side knee-deep in dirt tending to a small but very lush vegetable patch. Rey smiles. She had always wanted a garden, but the only variety she could get were the sad potted plants that she’d perch on her fire escape. The plants always died so quickly.

“Sit, sit!” Penny urges, turning around and smiling widely at them from under her wide brimmed hat, turning pink and blotchy from the sun despite the coverage. The woman was not made for the sun. Rey looks around.

It’s bright and lovely, the first true sunshine since she’d arrived. Whatever Irish gods were looking down on them had finally decided to ease up on the pain. While she’s looking around at the lush vegetation and the beautiful flowers, Ren’s looking around for a spot to sit.

There’s only one open space. She catches him pursing his lips before her brain catches up to the situation.

Oh.

The other seat is covered with dirty vegetables and soaking wet from where Martin had been piling them up. The old man hollers at them. “I’m getting you as many vegetables for dinner as you’d like, Mr. Ren! Anything in particular?”

Ren looks at the chair, lips still tight.

“No, thank you. You’ve done an excellent job.” His deep baritone _almost_ disguises the small amount of sarcasm Rey has come to recognize. Almost. “A bit of everything’s fine.”

Penny’s still humming rather shrilly and Rey looks at the man next to her, until they notice their host looking at them carefully from the edges of her hat.

Right.

Ren takes a deep breath and arches an eyebrow at Rey.

Another out.

 _Just say the word_ , that small expression seems to say. Rey grins. She’d talked to Finn. She could deal with this.

Rey grabs her ‘husband’s’ hand and pulls him to the white wrought iron bench that’s really only big enough for one, then gently guides him to sit with a joke about him having to be her cushion because wrought iron is too hard on her delicate behind. He smirks and shakes his head, but his eyes are those of a trapped animal. He doesn’t want to be this close, probably because of what had happened inside. Rey swallows. He’d respected her. Inside that bathroom, Ren had done everything in his power to ensure she didn’t go over a precipice in her panic, and he’d respected her. Somehow she knew he’d respect her now. That’s the only thing keeping her from turning around and bolting inside. That and her happy-high from talking to Finn.

_I can do this. It’s all pretend, anyway. He’s a gentleman._

When he’s properly seated and his knees part, Rey walks in between them and promptly perches herself on his left thigh, a little bit stiff. Rey forces her body to relax.

His arms come up on instinct, one hand curled into her hip, the other wrapping around her legs so that his forearm rests on her thigh. Penny seems to have decided this was acceptable for a newly married couple. Rey bites back the desire to laugh. This is all insane, and leaning into this man as if he were truly her husband was starting to become a little too easy.

Her breath catches when he leans forward as if to kiss her earlobe, her hair cascading around his face. It’s enough to hide his lips as hot air heats her ear when he whispers.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I promise you, we can leave.”

Rey swallows hard and turns to give him a smile, and up close like this, with the light hitting him just right, his eyes turn gold. His lashes are fuller than she’d expected them to be, thick and long and beautifully glossy. His face’s covered in tiny little beauty marks. For a moment she forgets what she’s meant to say as she takes them in, then she wraps her one arm around his massive shoulders.

Boy, they are massive. They had _looked_ massive, but feeling them under her fingers is an entirely different beast.

Rey leans in close to hug him, resting her chin on his shoulder where Penny can’t see her or hear her murmuring.

“Just one night. I’ll be fine. Thank you, though…”

His fingers at her hip tighten slightly and she feels the same familiar rub of his thumb pressing into her skin. She wonders if he’s even aware that he does that. When his chest rumbles in reluctant assent, Rey smiles and allows herself to look around over his shoulder, chin pressing into his t-shirt.

It was such a sleepy place. Green and lush and basked in golden light. Rey could see herself in a place like this. A small sleepy place all to herself to plant flowers and vegetables in during the day, and sit by a cozy fireplace at night. Quiet and beautiful and removed from the crazy atmosphere of the city that never sleeps. A nice daydream for when reality set back in in a few days and she has to return to her apartment. Staying with Finn in Dublin would be a dream but she probably should go back after he accepts. Life doesn’t necessarily stop for marriage proposals.

“So, how did you two meet?” Comes Penny’s light, curious voice. Ren’s hand immediately tenses as he tightens it into her thigh protectively, pulling her in just so. Even his knees draw closer to cage her in. Rey’s head jerks away from his shoulder into full sitting position, straightening her back. They give each other a glance then paste on sickly sweet smiles. This too is becoming too easy.

It’s Ren who speaks.

“She asked me for the time,” he responds with a shit-eating grin on his face. Rey smacks him gently on the shoulder where Penny can’t see, and when he turns that grin on her it stops being shitty and becomes bright and genuine. He looks back at Penny, continuing his story.

“It was years ago, but I still remember how she looked perfectly. Tired and small and adorably bedraggled, and with no cellphone charge. When I saw her…well…” Ren’s now lying through his teeth.

In truth Rey had looked like a hot mess. Adorably bedraggled was not what she would have called herself. Rey almost giggles at the hilarity of it all, but allows him to spin his tale of love at first sight.

“You should have _seen_ her. Tiny and so very cute,” he turns to her and plants the softest kiss on her nose, “and with that cute button nose of hers.” He tilts his head, taking in her eyes, “and those gorgeous eyes. And that beautiful pout. I said to myself… she’ll be my wife one day.”

Rey’s cheeks heat up three hundred degrees. Still, she bites back the urge to explode with laughter. This was so, _so_ far removed from the truth — still, there was just enough there about the time to make it easy for them both to remember. The best lies always were based in truth. To Penny, the blush on her cheeks is that of a woman feeling entirely flattered. Rey’s most certainly dying a little of embarrassment inside.

“She’s definitely a beauty!” Penny pipes, this time turning a very bright, very genuine smile on Rey. Ren nods, leaning his head until his chin rests on her shoulder, and he’s looking at her as though she were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The flush overtaking her cheeks now is very real. Rey had never thought herself beautiful in that way. Pretty, perhaps, but not beautiful. She had to give it to him, though. The man could act. At least his tale is done now—

“She was just standing there,” he murmurs, loud enough for Penny to hear but still soft enough for it to send shivers down Rey’s spine. His hand moves up to her back and he works the shiver out of her with long, strong fingers. “Looking like a petite helpless angel, asking me for the time. What’s a man to do in the face of that?”

Rey narrows her eyes at him, hoping it looks like a teasing, knowing smile as she chides him.

“Oh sweetie, stop. I do not look anything like an angel,” she purses her lips on the edge of a smile.

Penny is absolutely eating this up by the bushel.

Rey tips her head, dislodging his chin from her shoulder and his lids hang heavy as he takes her in, the same offer to walk away lingering in the air mixed in with a careful study of her features. She forces her smile to widen before turning to Penny and teasing with a hand in the air in a _I mean look at him_ gesture.

“You should have seen _him!_ Tall, dark, handsome. You see these shoulders? I felt so small. And his voice…” She says conspiratorially. Ren leans in and rubs his nose gently on her jaw. Penny looks ready to drop from the ridiculous amount of romance happening in front of her eyes. Rey grins. “It liquified my knees.”

They would give this woman _hell_. Perhaps hell would come in the form of a heart attack from an overdose of romance. Rey’s hand, the one resting over his shoulder, moves to dig into the soft hairs at the nape of his neck and Rey feels him give an involuntary shiver. Still, the show must go on, so she caresses there gently. She feels the intake of air against her jaw.

“He’s such a gentleman, and so very sweet. I was absolutely _done for_.”

Martin’s watching from far away with dreamy eyes as he pulls out dirty carrots from the ground. The man looks at his wife, a look that Penny can’t see, and gives the sweetest smile Rey has seen on the old man. Martin’s crazy for his wife. Even after all this time of marriage. Despite Penny’s crazy antics, Rey’s heart warms.

So that’s what a loving relationship looks like as it ages and strengthens.

That thought gets interrupted by the soft brush of Ren’s lips to her jawline as he murmurs, for her ears only, perhaps, “You’re too good to me.”

Her eyes almost flutter shut and she forces them wide open before pulling away slowly on pretense of it getting a little warm outside. His hand hasn’t stopped working at her back.

Martin, seeing the moment finished, calls Ren over.

“Come, come! Please tell me what else you’d like for dinner. We have rabbits and chickens in the back. Plenty fresh…still walking!” Martin cackles as if he’d made the biggest joke in the world.

Ren’s lips quirk up slightly and he nudges her gently until Rey stands before disentangling himself from her and walking over to Martin. They take off to go see the still-walking dinner choices, talking amongst themselves good-naturedly, leaving Rey and Penny behind.

Penny wipes sweat off her tomato red cheeks and, for once, gives Rey a kind look.

“You got lucky there, lassy,” Penny speaks, no ulterior motive in her voice or actions this time. “Not many men come around that look at their woman the way that boy looks at you, let me tell you. You should cling to him for dear life.”

Rey nods, unsure as to what to say, and Penny smiles. It’s a far away smile.

“He reminds me of my Martin a little. I mean, sure, Martin does not have the muscles on him that boy has,” Penny cackles. Rey flushes, “But he was a looker! And so kind. Your husband looks like he’s made of the right sort of stock. Keep him.”

Rey offers a quivering smile and muttered gratitude, then offers to help Penny.

Penny pulls out a pillow for Rey to kneel on and they spent the rest of the hour pulling weeds and tending flowers in blessed silence for once. She doesn’t like the woman, not really, but at least she can warm up to her just this tiny bit. Rey loves flowers.

When Ren finally comes back with a dead chicken in his arms and a basket for Martin’s vegetables he stops dead in his tracks. His eyes rove over her now dirty arms — somehow pulling weeds entails rey’s arms getting dirty to the elbow — and the smudges on her cheeks from where she’d rubbed away the heat, dust on her jeans and already turning a shade darker. She’d have strap tan marks on her back.

He shakes his head.

Rey gets up. She’d have to wash her hands so she could try to help with dinner, even if she’s not a fantastic cook. She owed him that much.

“Helpless duckling,” he remarks in a sing song as he passes her by on long legs.

Penny chuckles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny you loathsome woman. Penny needs to learn to not meddle. Penny has not learned how to do that yet. 
> 
> So. much. fluff.
> 
> Forever endebted to EjBlaKit who basically makes everything better always <3
> 
> Thank you all who have read and commented and stuck around so far for this story! Thanks for all the kudos and comments, subscriptions and bookmarks. And to all who have taken the time to share this story with their friends, since it helps others find my work! You're wonderful.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks all!


	12. White Wine & Brandy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo makes dinner. Everything tastes pretty good. Including Rey.

Kylo walks into the kitchen still shaking his head after the fantastic view he’d gotten of Rey kneeling , plucking weeds and tending plants until she was covered in dirt to her elbows. He’d gone around back and spent far too much time talking to Martin about cooking, finding out that the man was not only a giant food enthusiast but also forever cursed to his wife’s horrible meals. He’d felt so bad he’d decided to cook him something a little extra special.

Rey follows in behind him, walking over to the sink and quietly soaping up her arms. Kylo looks at her back, at the way the light glints around her from the small window by the sink, and then back down at his ingredients. He’d been glad for the time he’d spent selecting a chicken, trying his hardest to get his heart to calm the fuck down after having spent way too long holding Rey in his arms.

 _Get a hold of yourself, you idiot. Remember the bathroom. Remember the boyfriend_.

He barely knows her. She has a life she’s trying to move forward, if her insistence to get to Dublin is anything to go by, and he has no right to take any of this charade to heart. Twenty minutes on a white bench, with the girl on his lap, does not change that fact.

Kylo takes in a deep breath and turns to her again.

“Pass me that pan, will you?” He asks, pointing to one of the deep pans hanging from a peg above the sink.

Rey, ever helpful, grabs for it and hands it over immediately. Martin and Penny had left him free reign of the kitchen until the meal was over, with Penny excusing herself, telling them she would go do a few special chores. Rey and Kylo had looked at each other and arched identical eyebrows, but said nothing. He averts his eyes the second the pan’s in his hands.

They circle each other for a handful of minutes, Kylo digging around in too-small, too-low cupboards for ingredients as he runs a mental list of what he can throw together for dinner, grabbing a bottle of white wine and chicken broth. It wasn’t reduced chicken broth, only the store bought kind, but it would do. Rey mostly dances around him, looking for anything to help with. He passes her the bottle of wine.

“Drinking so early?” She asks, arching an eyebrow at him. Kylo scoffs as he steals a glance but quickly bends his head away while looking for a cutting board.

“It’s not for drinking,” he murmurs, digging around in the bottom cupboards.

He almost has to kneel in order to look in. Why is everything so damn small in this house? Rey leans over, enjoying the advantage of having her center of gravity be that much closer to the floor, and pushes him gently aside.

“What’re you looking for?” She asks, and so he tells her. Kylo moves away instantly, taking in a deep breath, and goes about looking for other ingredients.

Slow roasted chicken with a white wine glaze would work well. He looks at the vegetables, at the shallots, at anything but Rey.

“So, uhm…” she starts, as if having read his mind.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately cuts her off as his eyes glue themselves to the small picture of a kitten on the wall, not wanting to have her be the one to bring it up. “For out there, I’m sorry.”

There’s a tense moment of silence.

Then giggling.

“But did you _see_ Penny’s face?” She asks, and Kylo looks out towards the living room. No one can hear them. Rey gets up and passes him the cutting board. “She was eating it right up! I hope she chokes on it.”

The last is said in such a mumble that Kylo can’t help himself. He laughs, shaking his head.

“You have a mean streak in you, don’t you, duckling?” He asks, then takes in air.

 _Watch your stupid mouth, Kylo_.

Rey only gives him an impish smile, though.

“What can I help with?” She asks, showing him her now clean hands and arms. He arches an eyebrow.

“You sure you want to help?”

Rey huffs.

“I’m not as helpless as you think I am,” she retorts.

So Kylo shrugs and hands her the vegetables to chop.

It turns out she’s exactly as helpless as he thinks she is. Her chopping is slow and messy, but as the minutes pass while Kylo plucks and cleans the chicken, Rey starts to hum. He relaxes minimally, popping open the bottle of wine.

Rey grabs it absentmindedly and takes a swig, and Kylo shakes his head, busying himself with stuffing the chicken instead. The kitchen warms as the temperature from the heating oven increases. He ties up the chicken’s legs and wings with some twine, provided by Martin, then pops it all in the oven.

It’s so domestic, he realizes. So different from what his life had been four days ago, he muses as he sidesteps around the petite girl cheerfully destroying vegetables while humming.

“Happy?” He asks carefully, and Rey turns a small smile on him.

Of course she’d be happy. She got to talk to her boyfriend.

“What are we cooking?” She asks instead. Kylo grabs the bottle of wine and stares at it. There’d be plenty for the glaze. He takes a swig.

“Slow roasted chicken with a white wine shallot glaze, and vegetables with rice. If you stop destroying the vegetables, that is.”

Rey snorts, clearly affronted at his commentary on her cooking skills.

“Well, fine,” she huffs at him, pointing the knife up at his nose. Not close enough to threaten, though. Kylo smirks, leaning forward and wrapping his much larger hand around hers until she’s forced to give up the knife. He nudges her away from the cutting board and sets to cutting the rest of the vegetables.

“Can I do anything else?” She asks, helplessly looking around. It’s endearing, really, how much she wants to help out.

“You can sit over there and look pretty, and tell me what you and Penny talked about,” he says playfully, striking a conversation as the sound of the knife clunks against the wooden board every time he brings it down on a piece of shallot. Rey pinches her nose.

“The woman is a nightmare,” she groans. Understatement of the century, “But apparently she thinks very highly of you.”

Kylo turns his head slowly to look at her, stopping mid-chop. He narrows his eyes.

“Is that so?” He asks. Rey hums, but he doesn’t miss the soft shade of pink that graces her cheeks so he looks away. He should drop it already. She makes a grab for the bottle and takes a hard swig.

The rest of the time is spent in silence, until Rey picks up her humming again. She has a surprisingly pleasant singing voice. Kylo grabs a pan and gets to making the glaze while Rey beats a rhythm on the table with her fingernails in the heart of the golden afternoon light. The sizzle of broth and butter cooking behind him hides the painful thudding in his chest when he turns around to look at her.

 _You’re so good to me_. He’d whispered into her jawline, nuzzling it with a tenderness he normally did not possess.

Kylo hadn’t meant to say that. Or do that. That hadn’t been part of the acting. It had just slipped out. He can still feel the weight of her thighs burning into his lap. Four days and he’s calling her pet names and whispering words into her ear. He swallows, but the thought flies away when Rey turns her head and lets out a hard sneeze into her arm.

Well, that’s one way to make his heart stop doing small somersaults.

When she looks at him her nose is red and her eyes pinched, watering. He’d laugh if not for how miserable she looks in that moment.

“Gross,” he comments lightly even as he turns to grab her a paper towel. Rey grumbles and sets about to discreetly cleaning her nose, face away from him so he can’t watch. He rolls his eyes. “You should stop drinking now.”

He makes to grab for the wine bottle and Rey narrows her eyes at him.

“… Or not,” he amends, sighing. “Allergies?”

Rey shrugs. “Maybe.”

He shakes his head. Talk of germs was never a pleasant topic of conversation.

And so Rey sits in her chair, humming while playing with a discarded bit of vegetable, and Kylo sets about finishing their meal in the comfortable warmth of the kitchen. He finally snatches the bottle of wine from her and there’s only just enough to make the glaze. He’d have to buy these people some more wine.

The vegetables get tossed in olive oil and the rice gets cooked in what’s left of the broth, and twenty minutes later dinner’s almost ready to eat. Rey leaves to go get Penny and help the woman set the table. The space gives him time to think.

 _What am I even doing?_ He muses.

He should have been at Luke’s already, trying to get that pub up and running, not here, cooking for a tiny girl and four people he doesn’t necessarily know. That one couple would be arriving soon. Still, it’s a distraction, and, if he’s honest with himself, Rey and the crazy antics up until now had given him something to take his mind away from Phasma and Hux. The thought of his girlfriend and his partner make his skin boil so he flips the vegetables harder than necessary and focuses instead on the soft sound of Rey’s laughter as it floats from the dining room to his ears.

He couldn’t let her go by herself to Dublin. Not after what he’d found out. Kylo had immediately become protective against his better judgement, but he couldn’t help it. No one should have to go through that. He should know.

Rey pops her head into the kitchen just as he’s going down his own personal path of self-hate, giving him a wide smile.

“It smells amazing,” she praises, taking in a deep breath. “We’re ready for you. And the other couple just got here.”

Then she bolts right back out, leaving him to stare, and he hisses when a hot drop of olive oil sizzles and jumps up off the pan onto his forearm. Martin comes in, also praising him over the absolute smell - the man looks like he hasn’t seen a proper meal in years, and perhaps he hasn’t - and helps him bring the dishes over to the table where Penny and Rey have set it up with fresh flowers from the garden. The dishes also look like the fancy ones, the ones every middle aged woman seems to keep; the precious china that’s to be looked at but never eaten off of.

“Behold! Dinner,” he calls, mostly to amuse their hosts, but he hears delighted sounds from Rey as well. His smile widens slightly.

The new couple are also middle aged, the lady thin as a rail with bright blue eyes that were probably very beautiful once, and the man a balding fifty-some year old, tan as leather and with the thickest Italian accent Kylo’s ever heard when he speaks.

“This smells _delizioso_!” The man offers, making a kissing motion with his fingers. So very Italian. Kylo takes it as a compliment. Italians are very hard to please.

Everyone sits, each person paired off with their significant other, and the conversation turns pleasant enough as the dishes are passed around. He watches Rey spoon in way more food than he ever thought she could eat. She might be the size of a peanut, but she eats like a horse. He smiles.

He seemed to be smiling an awful lot lately.

Kylo waits to see her reaction. Well, everyone’s reactions, but mostly hers. When she finally forks some of the chicken and pushes it into her mouth, her eyes go slightly wide and she starts chewing faster in that way that tells him she’s enjoying it. She’d done the same with the ham and butter sandwich. A couple of pleased groans escape everyone, but his ears only focus on the delighted little moan at the back of her throat.

Good.

Kylo finally starts eating.

“I didn’t know you could cook—“ she starts, and Kylo immediately notices how Penny and Martin look at them. The Italian couple are too busy eating. Rey amends, “—this particular dish! Why didn’t you tell me, Sweetheart?”

Kylo takes a long moment to chew, smiling to himself and for their hosts’ benefit, while he considers his answer. Finally he goes with the simplest thing he knows, even if it’s also the most smartass response.

“You never asked,” he murmurs while looking at her. Rey scrunches her nose then leans in and kisses his cheek.

She’s turning the acting on. Kylo inhales sharply, still not quite over their exercise in theatrics in the garden.

“Well, it’s delicious,” she murmurs for his ears only.

Kylo exhales slowly and pastes on a sickeningly sweet smile. If she can act despite her history, then so can he. When he leans in to gently brush his lips against her cheek, Rey hums. Everyone around the table is watching.

“Oh but look at you two!” Penny comments, “I’ve never seen two people so in love.”

Rey tenses under the table, so he plants his hand on her knee and squeezes. A reassurance. She relaxes, then lets out an obviously faked laugh. At least, it’s fake to his ears. To everyone else it probably sounds very genuine.

“Sorry, I can’t help it,” she whispers, “He’s just…”

“Oh, I know all about that!” Pipes the Italian lady. “My Franchesco here! It was love at first sight…”

So the conversation turns to the Italians, Franchesco and his wife — Thea, it turns out to be her name —  speak about their own love story, leaving Kylo and Rey to _ooh_ and _ahh_ at all the right places while enjoying their meal in silence.

It isn’t until every single scrap of vegetable, every morsel of chicken and every grain of rice is gone that Martin gets up and goes to grab the brandy. It’s a giant bottle. Kylo gets the impression that they go through these a lot, from the second bottle sitting on the rack.

Glasses are distributed with good natured cheer, and Rey, who’d already had quite a few swigs of wine in the kitchen, looks at the small glasses warily. He sets to intervening.

“Martin I don’t think we should—“ he starts, only to be cut off by Franchesco.

“Nonsense, _mio figlio!_ All good meals must end with a cap!” Franchesco rubs his hands together, giving him a toothy grin.

“No I really—“ he begins. Rey’s sitting rather still at his side. Perhaps she doesn’t drink around others?

“Ah but you’ve cooked us such a good meal!” Penny provides, and everyone else but Rey choruses their agreement, “and this is _vintage!_ A small one won’t hurt.”

He looks at Rey. It’s four to two. Rey gives a resigned shrug after a while and grabs her little shot. Kylo bites his lip. One wouldn’t hurt. When Thea passes him his Kylo grabs it with stiff fingers, painfully avoiding her long fingers and clearly fake nails. He looks at the amber liquid, served neat, then at Rey. The tip of her nose has turned pink and her eyes are just a particular level of glassy. She shrugs at him again.

“To a wonderful evening!” Martin announces, Kylo mumbles his assent and glasses clink before everyone downs their brandy.

It goes down entirely too smoothly then it settles warmly in his stomach.

Perfect vintage.

Rey’s staring at her now empty glass curiously, as if she’d never tasted something that could go down so smoothly. When he makes to take her glass the table erupts in conversation again, this time over the quality of their alcohol and its age — _As old as some of the hairs on my chest!_ Martin pipes up with a cackle, downing another glass — and goes on for another fifteen minutes. Kylo relaxes. The worst part of the meal is over.

Except that’s never true, is it? No, in Kylo’s limited experience, it never was.

“You know what we should do? Play a game!” Martin says, having obviously downed just a hair more than necessary in a matter of minutes. “A good meal and a good night cap are wonderful, but an evening amongst friends is never quite done without a game!”

“Card game!” Franchesco booms, and the women seem fairly happy by this.

_Oh, a card game. That’s not so bad._

Except—

Martin leans over his wife and plants a soft kiss on her head. Penny preens, her own cheeks colored pink from the brandy. Rey and Kylo watch them carefully. Drunk people wanting to play games never went well.

“How about we play Truth or Kiss? We have a brand new couple here! It’s time we showed them how we olden ones do it.” Martin proposes. Kylo chokes a little and Rey tenses to stone.

“ _What?_ ” Kylo asks with a croak.

This isn’t happening.

“Oh! This game! We played it last week, no?” Thea says, turning to Kylo with all the air of a woman who holds the secrets of the universe and is about to impart them on her young padawans. “We all share a truth about our lives! And about our marriages! If the answer isn’t good enough to everyone else’s satisfaction, you kiss. Or you can skip the truth if you’re uncomfortable, take a drink, then kiss your partner! It’s great for bonding!”

Rey croaks beside him and Kylo has to place his hand on her knee and squeeze again. He’d found himself touching her an awful lot lately, all things considered. Part of him is surprised she’s allowed it at all.

Penny, Thea and Franchesco whisper amongst themselves and chuckle, obviously delighting in the two younglings sitting there like they’re deers caught in headlights, entirely oblivious to how uncomfortable Kylo and Rey are.

“No, that’s alright,” Rey says, pasting on a sweet smile. “We’re not very into…games…”

“Nonsense, lass!” Martin laughs raucously, “Look at that husband of yours! What do you mean you’re not into _games!_ ”

Martin’s obviously had a few too many, and alcohol loosened the man. Kylo breathes in deeply.

This is not happening.

This is _not_ happening.

“Really, Sir,” he begins, trying to use his sternest tone, “We would rather—“

“Oh come on!” Penny says, giving them that infernal pointed look of hers. “You were so sweet earlier! Surely a little game of Truth or Kiss isn’t something to get flustered over! You’re among friends!”

Kylo changes tactics.

“Isn’t it Truth or _Dare?”_ He asks. Martin cackles.

“My boy, when you’re this old, the only dare you can take on is to kiss your lovely wife like you’re off to war and won’t see her again. You may be able to go run around naked through the yard in your strapping youth,” he explains, and Rey’s turning about twenty degrees of tomato red by his side. Kylo’s sure his own cheeks are tinging pink, “But we’re not doing that! I don’t look good bare like the day I was born anymore! So Truth or Kiss it is!”

“Don’t be a spoil sport, _mio figlio_!” Franchesco chimes in, obviously excited about the idea of drinking and kissing his wife. Kylo closes his eyes for a second then looks at Rey.

_Just say the word. Just say it._

He’d be fine sleeping in a bush if she asked him to.

Rey takes in his face, inch by inch, detail by detail, for far too long. As if reading his mind, she shakes her head. She’s clearly not willing to sleep in a bush in the middle of the night. He can hear the pitter patter of rain slowly beginning outside.

Kylo leans in to let her whisper into his ear when she leans forward.

“We’ll give them hell for this later,” she mumbles so low he almost can’t hear it even as her breath caresses his ear lobe.

When he turns to the other two couples, everyone’s looking at them with interest.

“Alright, alright.”

Kylo and Rey come up first, because _of course_ they’d come up first.

“What was your most romantic moment!” Penny asks, meddlesome as always.

Rey looks at Kylo, there’s a hint of panic there.

“Skip,” she replies instantly, never losing eye contact with him. Kylo frowns.

“Wow they’re sure ready for this,” Thea comments to her husband.

Penny and Martin are delighted, though. Martin serves them both a shot of brandy with a laugh and encouragement. Kylo keeps watching Rey as she grabs her drink and downs it, determination in her eyes. Kylo downs his shot in a hard swallow. The two other couples are cheering them on as if they were all teenagers playing spin the bottle.

This is insane.

Rey makes the first move. She leans in and quickly plants a soft peck on his lips. It’s over before he can register it even happened. It burns.

“There,” Rey gives, satisfied.

“Oh, oh no no!” Franchesco’s voice roars up above everyone’s laughter. “That’s not a kiss! That’s a…a…what’s the word?” he turns to his wife, who’s obviously more proficient in English.

Thea shrugs. “Not a kiss.”

 _Not a kiss_ , the rest of the table parrots.

This is _insane_.

“Kiss your wife, son!” Martin hollers, swinging the brandy bottle around.

A deep breath.

Kylo turns towards Rey, who’s sitting like a statue next to him. He lets air flow in through his nose, out his lips, and forces himself to allow the room to drop away and disappear. His hands creep up slowly from his side, all the way up her arms, trying to reassure her, and he bites his lip at the trail of goosebumps his touch leaves behind. Rey’s eyes have not left his. He should stop now, he chants to himself over the steady drum of intensifying rain.

Kylo focuses on the tip of her quickly reddening nose. He kisses it softly much as he had in the garden. Rey swallows, hands fisted on her lap. Every single eye in the room is focused on them as Kylo allows a soft breath to escape and makes those staring eyes disappear. When her breath reaches him it mingles into intoxicating brandy and herbs. He licks his lips. It’s enough to make any man hungry again.

This is crazy.

His one hand sneaks up to cup the side of her cheek, tilting her head gently until his fingers are lost in her hair.

This is madness.

Rey’s chest isn’t moving. His other hand slides up her shoulder to cup the back of her neck, bringing her closer. She doesn’t move, and he can feel the tension under his fingers. He looks at her from under half lowered lids.

 _Say the word_. He begs. Rey’s gaze hardens.

Kylo’s face lowers and tilts until her soft lips are a hair away from his, soft warm air from her lungs and his mixing between them, and he carefully places a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth, avoiding the unavoidable.

This is lunacy.

The moment between his lips pressing to hers and his eyes slowly falling shut extends for an eternity.

When they finally meet, all he gets is warmth and stiffness.

It’s not a kiss. It’s lips mashed together for a long, drawn out moment. The moment kickstarts again when he tastes brandy on her. His lips act of their own volition. He opens, seeking the taste, forgetting for a second that this is all meant to be playacting. Rey’s breath hitches so he caresses her cheek with his thumb, trying without words to reassure her it would be okay.

This is beyond lunacy, this is absolutely _not_ what he should be doing.

_Stop. Stop. Stop._

“Oh, would you look at that,” Penny whispers to Martin with a soft sigh, enjoying the view as if it were a 1930’s rom-com. The woman’s words seem to snap Rey up from her frozen state.

Soft lips part under him and his stomach drops.

They move, mechanically but gently, and Rey’s hands move up to caress the back of his hair once more. The grumble that escapes him is unbidden, a reaction he’s getting conditioned to when she touches him. She softens under him. He _almost_ feels a soft, damp tongue against his own, mixed in with the intoxicating taste that is the girl in his arms. Maybe it’s his imagination. The kiss lasts only a second longer before he breaks it and clears his throat.

This is not how he expected the night to go. When his eyes open Rey’s lashes have only just fluttered slightly. Then wide hazel meets golden brown. They stare at each other numbly for a second.

“BRAVO!!” Breaks the clapping from around the table. The room comes back in sharp focus, whiplashing him back to reality. Kylo gets a clap on the back from Martin, who pours everyone a new round. “Now that’s how you kiss a woman!”

Kylo glues his eyes to his drink.

The moment is broken when Rey sneezes away from him again. Kylo snorts.

Not how his night should have gone _at all_.

He downs his shot without being prompted to give a truth or a kiss.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ahem*  
> Well, then. I guess this just happened. Is it a real kiss if the marriage's fake? 
> 
> Thank you to EjBlaKit for her forever amazingness and helping me beta these things. You rock.
> 
> And thank you all as always for all the comments, kudos, subscriptions, bookmarks, and your enthusiastic welcome of this crazy train. I love you for it.
> 
> Glossary:  
> mio figlio = My son  
> for those who are visual people, [here's the dish](http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/04/the-food-lab-why-chicken-pan-sauce-better-at-restaurants-make-at-home.html).


	13. Wine & Foil

Rey’s eyes hadn’t moved off the shot in front of her for at least ten minutes now. Not until, of course, Ren breaks her out of her reverie by carefully reaching under the table and giving her knee a gentle squeeze.

He’d done that repeatedly.

Surprisingly, Rey hadn’t minded. Not when he’d tried to reassure her it would be okay, not when he’d tried to ask her about the drink without words, not when he’d tried to ease her worries about the stupid game of Truth or Kiss. Her heart’s somewhere jammed up in her throat and she turns to look at him, blinking rapidly.

The night had taken a turn for the worse, and Rey had almost bolted until she’d heard the rain. They were truly stuck, and that meant playing this game and getting through the night. They’d be out in the morning. She’d told herself she could get through this. As she’d examined Ren’s face and found nothing but concern there, she’d made up her mind.

 _He’s a gentleman. This is all pretend_.

Except, for the last ten minutes Rey’s stomach had been doing uncomfortable flops while the burn of his kiss eased off her lips. The ghost of his touch faded incredibly slow.

Rey swallows, concentrating on the man beside her. He pinches his nose.

“It’s our turn again,” he says, looking thoroughly displeased. His shot had been refilled after he’d downed it, despite not having been dared to do anything. “You look tired.”

Rey gives him a weak smile, trying to concentrate hard on his words. Probably giving her an out. He’d offered about twenty outs by now. Before Rey can say anything, though, Penny’s already asking their question.

“Alright, children! What’s your favorite way of doing it?”

Ren’s head whips around.

“Excuse me?” He asks. Rey echoes him.

“You know! The deed! The horizontal danc—“

Rey clears her throat loudly, widening her eyes at Penny for emphasis. “You know, I’m sorry. I’m really tired now. Would you excuse me?”

She pushes her chair back, listening to the scraping noise like nails on a chalkboard, and forces herself to bid her good night in a pleasant tone rather than bolting out of the room like she so desperately wanted to. Penny and Thea laugh about young girls being so shy, and Francesco is busy clearing his throat from having choked on his drink. Martin very carefully inspects his glass of brandy, avoiding looking at Rey.

“I— Uhm, thank you again for your kindness, Mr. And Mrs.—“

“Oh, call me _Penny_! We’re good friends here!” Penny cuts her off, cheeks ruddy and hair flying out of her bun. The woman had had plenty to drink. “I hope you two have a _lovely night!”_

Penny chuckles and Martin shakes his head with an indulgent smile. Rey turns to Ren.

“You can stay a little longer if you’d like, Sweetie—“

“No,” Ren cuts her off, then clears his throat uncomfortably and shoves his hands into his pockets. His head comes down a little as he curls in on himself in a way that makes Rey smile, and when he looks up at her through thick lashes it’s with the most sheepish of looks. “I mean, what kind of husband would I be if I left you all by yourself?”

Rey smiles, genuinely this time, despite her exhaustion and the levels of anxiety this whole dinner had instigated for her.

“Okay. I don’t know the way to the room anyway,” she replies with a shrug, eyeing the staircase. “I’ll uh…”

“Oh! I forgot!” Martin says, pulling Ren by the arm, “One moment, little lass. I have something to discuss with your husband.”

Rey stares at their retreating backs and can do nothing but stand awkwardly by Penny and the other two people around the table. She glues on a small smile, her eyes on the door.

“You should drink that,” Penny says, pulling her out of her reverie.

“Uhm?” Rey asks absentmindedly.

“Your drink!” Penny replies, pointing to Rey’s untouched shot. “It’s the good stuff! And perhaps you might need a little liquid courage?”

Rey frowns. _Liquid what?_

She stares at the glass. It would be awfully rude of her not to drink what had been so willingly offered. Plus she’d already had about a half bottle of wine and a shot, what was one more? She picks up the glass and downs it quickly, and everyone around the table cheers.

“Ah, well done!” They all call in a chorus before chuckling to themselves and ignoring her, deciding to focus instead on each other after Rey refuses to engage in small talk. It takes Ren about five minutes to return. When he walks through the door - hunched over to avoid bonking his head - his arms are stiffly held at his side, holding a bottle of red. She takes in his face, stony and flushed all at the same time. What in the…

“Come on,” he says, immediately wrapping his hand around her waist protectively as he guides her towards the stairs, away from everyone’s prying eyes and ears. Rey tenses but allows it and Ren’s fingers immediately drop from her side as they clear the room; she throws a glance to the people behind her. Martin has a satisfied grin on his face as he leans over to kiss his wife’s head.

“What was that about?” Rey asks in a murmur once they make it up the stairs. The hall’s dark, the only source of light being the golden glow from the stairwell, and she can only just barely notice Ren’s head shaking.

“You don’t want to know,” he whispers, passing her the heavy bottle as he grabs her other hand and guides her towards the room, his free hand pressed against the wall until he feels their door. He drops his hold on her as soon as he finds the door, opening it and moving to flick on the light switch—

He doesn’t need to.

The whole room is covered in dozens of small round glass bowls filled halfway with water, lit tealight candles floating in the middle, bathing the room in that ethereal light that only candlelight can achieve. Rey looks into the room from behind Kylo’s arm, bunching her fingers into his shirt to push him a little sideways so she can get a better view, and arches an eyebrow. He’s standing statue still at her side. Her eyes fall on the bed, positively covered in red and pinkish petals she recognizes from the afternoon. Rey bites her lip.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Ren says.

Rey grunts something that sounds like agreement, too busy deciding between being entirely mortified and laughing. The bottle of wine suddenly made so much sense.

“They’re not even  _trying_ to be subtle at this point,” she says, finally coming around him to stand next to him inside the room.

Ren turns to look at her, face torn between amusement and mortification. It’s what finally breaks the camel’s back as Rey slowly walks towards the door, closes it with a soft click, and then clips over to the bed before falling on it. She laughs face first into the comforter, far too gone to even consider that there’s only one bed.

The dam breaks and Rey rolls around until she’s on her back, laughing into the room as if it had told her the funniest joke on earth. Actually, it just had. A small sheen of tears teases her lashes as she holds her hand over her mouth and convulses.

It goes on, and on, and on. Her sides hurt. After about five minutes Rey finally sits up and wipes away the tears. Ren is standing exactly where she’d left him. He’d taken the bottle and placed it on the small bedside table, then resumed his place and leaned back against the closet. His shoulders had lost a bit of their edge, but not much.

“Well I’m glad one of us finds it hilarious,” he says, shaking his head. Rey’s insides threaten to break out in laughter again. She sniffs, looking around for something to clean her nose up with. Rey snorts.

“At this point, it’s either laugh or cry,” she admits, eyes running over the bedside tables. No tissue box. “What time is it?”

Ren pulls his phone out of his pocket and Rey watches as the little screen lights up his face with a blue glow, so starkly contrasted to the golden warmth of the tealight candles. Another giggle escapes. He looks up from the screen at her and shakes his head. She notices that his other hand’s been shoved into his pocket, as if afraid to touch anything just by having his hands by his side.

“Ten,” he says, “We were down there for quite a while. One would think they’d be done soon.”

Rey hiccups a giggle back then runs her hands down the soft petals on the comforter. She picks up a few and rolls them between her thumb and her index finger. Ren watches her, curious and very, very guarded. Every once in awhile his own hand shifts in his pockets, perhaps toying with a loose thread or pocket lint. He carefully avoids looking at her after that.

“We’re waiting,” she proclaims, quickly coming up with a plan. Ren finally pries his eyes off the ugly flowered curtains to look at her, eyebrows rising.

“We’re what?” He asks.

“We’re waiting for them to be done.” She nods, then looks at the bottle of wine by the bed. She makes a grab for it. Mixing alcohol had never been a great idea, but hey, this occasion called for it. Ren scrunches his shoulders, eyeing her warily.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s the fact that the last four days of her life have been one ridiculous event after another, but she scoots over to the inside of the bed then pats the side next to her.

“We’re waiting for them to be done, then they’re _so_ paying for this.”

Ren stares at the bed. Now that it’s just the two of them, he’s dropped all pretenses of closeness. He looks at her and narrows his eyes. “I’ll sleep down here, thanks.”

Rey frowns.

It’s kind of sweet of him to offer to sleep on the floor, but seriously. She pats the bed again.

“You’re a nice guy. I trust you sitting here,” she nods, then tries to pop open the bottle of wine. The cork doesn’t budge. Ren watches her carefully, and Rey turns to him, head slightly buzzy from the shots of brandy. “Are you just going to stand there?”

He huffs, then takes the two short steps it takes him to come to the bed. He lowers himself slowly onto the tiny bed, the mattress dipping dangerously at his weight, and watches her struggle with the cork again. When she’s made no progress in five minutes he shakes his head again with a muttered comment about a helpless duckling, then twitches his fingers at her.

“Give that here.”

Rey hands it over. It takes him two seconds to pop the cork out.

“I loosened it for you,” she retorts. He smiles, but hands the bottle back over.

“So, how exactly are we paying them back?” Ren asks curiously, leaning into the headboard. The bed screeches painfully loud at the motion. Rey grins. Ren’s eyes widen.

“No,” he breathes out, more in surprise than anything. “ _That’s_ your plan?”

Rey laughs. His lips part in disbelief, then he tilts his head back and joins her.

It positively _booms._ She’d never heard him laugh, and almost drops the open bottle of wine at the sound. It bounces off the walls like a drum, coming from a well deep within his diaphragm as if being dragged out by force, deep and tinged with something dark and becoming as it echoes around the tiny space. His hair’s fallen into his eyes and he shakes his head while pushing further back into the bed frame.

Ren reaches into his pocket, and what she had assumed was pocket lint turns out to be a small square packet. She’d know one anywhere. Her face goes red and her body heats up immediately, starting at her cheeks then spreading down to her tiptoes.

Ren turns the little plastic square between his fingers. She can hear the squeak of rubber inside.

“Do they not have _anything_ better to do?” He asks, looking at it. Despite herself, Rey snatches it from his fingers. He arches an eyebrow. “What’re you doing?”

“We’ll need this later,” she says, and only too late does she realize what that must sound like. She bites her tongue.

“I don—“

“Not that way,” she corrects immediately.

Ren arches an eyebrow but hums, his fingers laced together on his lap as he stares up at the ceiling.

“I am sorry,” he murmurs after a while. He refuses to look at her. Rey stares at the open bottle and takes a swig. Maybe liquid courage wasn’t such a bad idea.

“So am I,” she says.

“You could have said the word and we would have left, you know,” Ren grumbles, turning his head sideways to look at her from under heavy lids. “You shouldn’t have to put up with this.”

Rey shrugs, eyes fixed on the bottle. “I don’t particularly feel like sleeping out in the rain.”

As if on cue, her body jerks and she has just enough time to pass Ren the bottle of wine before it sloshes everywhere, turning her head to the side as a loud sneeze flies out. It leaves her ribcage aching.

“You’re sleeping on that side,” he mumbles. Rey groans, but before she can turn around there’s a napkin being pushed under her nose.

That’s right. He’s the kind of weird guy who keeps napkins in his pocket.

Rey clears her nose and then leans back, nostrils aching and burning.

“You sure you’re alright?” He asks, and Rey nods.

“Not used to being around all this greenery,” she offers what passes for a reason.

She wouldn’t get sick. She _couldn’t_ get sick. A stupid cold was not going to keep her from what she’d come here to do.

“I’m pretty sure _greenery_ doesn’t cause a snotterfall, Rey,” he offers, looking at the wine and giving himself a shrug before taking a gulp. Rey scoffs. He smirks around the lip of the bottle before looking at her and mumbling into it. “What? I’m not the one sneezing my heart out here.”

Rey shakes her head.

Somehow between day one of her nightmarish trip to Ireland, and day four of said continued nightmares — several of which had had to do with this man, actually — she’d found herself sitting in a bed and breakfast with a six foot two giant ( _six foot three?_ She muses), drinking from a bottle of wine and joking about snot.

“This is insane,” Rey says to the air. Ren nods his assent. “It’s just for tonight. Then tomorrow we can be on our way.”

Ren nods again.

“Silver lining, at least we don’t have to see them until the morning,” Ren offers lamely. Rey snorts, but the tickle of the motion almost makes her sneeze again so she breathes in air through her mouth for a moment. He passes her the bottle absentmindedly. She takes a drink.

They spend the next twenty minutes or so talking about nothing in particular, though she finally learns that he’s from Los Angeles, and he laughs at her for living in a shoebox in NYC.

“You know you could probably afford a _house_ elsewhere for that price, right?” He asks, seeming to have forgotten that he’s trying to avoid touching her as he pries the wine bottle from her hand and drinks. It’s already halfway gone.

“Says the man who lives in sunny California. How many limbs do you usually sacrifice for _your_ rent?” She chides playfully, taking the bottle back.

“I— Ah, actually. I just bought my place.” He says, staring off towards a flimsy curtain covering up something Rey hasn’t investigated yet. “Four days ago, actually.”

Rey blinks.

“You _bought_ your place? As in you’re the legal owner of the thing forever? In Los Angeles? How old are you? You can’t be older than thirty five.”

Ren snorts, turning to her with an arched brow, “Thirty two, thank you very much.” He scoffs and mutters “Thirty five…”

Rey smirks, running her thumb on the lip of the bottle. She’s probably sick and she’s been trading germs with this guy for like a half hour.

“If you wake up sick tomorrow, I apologize in advance,” she says. Ren smirks.

“I thought you said it was allergies?”

Rey clamps her mouth shut. He gives her a self satisfied look that reeks of _gotcha_. Rey narrows her eyes at him until he looks away, then takes to studying him.

It suddenly made so much sense. The guy must be made of money. It certainly explains why he seems to want to throw money at his problems left and right. Money solved a whole lot of things. She would know.

Rey clears her throat and looks away.

“What time is it now?” She asks. Ren dutifully checks his phone again.

“Almost eleven,” he says, stealing the bottle of wine. At this rate it would be gone very quickly. She can feel her cheeks warm from the alcohol and her body feels a little like it’s floating, and also like it’s been filled up with lead. Falling asleep right now would be the most glorious thing, but she has to deliver a whole can of whoopass labeled ‘ _payback, bitch’_ to Penny and Co, so sleep could wait.

Ren seems to notice.

The man seems to notice an awful lot.

“You should go sleep,” he offers, placing the bottle on the nightstand away from her. “I’ll take the floor.”

Rey sighs. “Don’t be stupid. Just stick to your side and we’ll be fine.”

She’d never shared a bed with anybody. _Nobody_ but Finn.

Still, the man beside her had paid for their stay here. It would be awful of her to force him on the cold floor. She’d just press herself up against the wall and stay there all night.

“Have you seen the size of this bed?” He asks, and Rey’s eyes focus on him. He’s right.

Ren’s legs are dangerously close to dangling off the end even half sitting as he is, and the bed itself is no bigger than a full-sized mattress. Fitting his whole body would take a miracle. Rey smirks.

“That’s what you get for being ridiculously tall,” she says.

“No, you just happen to be the size of a bird. Also, did you just call me stupid?” He asks, turning to watch her and leaning forward with squinted eyes. Rey laughs.

Just as he’s opening his mouth to say something else, they hear steps coming up the stairs.

“Oh! Well, time to act,” she pronounces, glad that the distraction kept him from moving too close. It brought rather uncomfortable images of him leaning in for their kiss earlier. Ren stiffens and turns his head towards the wall as if he could see through it. There are four sets of steps.

Everyone’s retiring to their bedrooms.

Ren looks back at her and raises his brows in question. Rey smirks then opens her mouth and—

“ _OH!_ ” She calls in a half moaned cry, hand flying to the headboard and banging it lightly against the wall.

All footsteps stop and Ren almost chokes.

She leans back in while thumping the headboard against the wall repeatedly to a rather slow, steady rhythm that makes Ren’s ears turn darker in the candlelight. She leans closer.

“Quick what’s your first name?” She hisses.

“Kylo,” Ren replies in a whisper, grabbing the bottle of wine and taking a gulp. Rey nods and bangs the headboard harder.

“ _OH MY GOD, KYLO!_ ” she cries in a drawn out moan. A little bit of wine dribbles out the corners of Kylo’s mouth and he mouths a silent curse as he tries to wipe it away, stuck between a laugh and a grimace. Rey punches him in the arm and motions for him to make a sound.

Ren shakes his head hard, crossing his arms in front of him, so Rey kneels on the bed and moves closer, all the while letting out semi-loud drawn out hissy moans and grunts that she knows can be heard through the paper thin walls.

She looms over Ren’s seated form, glaring at him.

“Do it,” she hisses. Ren’s lips twitch, and he rolls his eyes. She repeats herself in a tiny murmur, “C’mon.”

She bangs the headboard harder just as Kylo rolls his eyes and lets out a very loud, very guttural grunt.

Her body almost jerks at the sound. Now she knows why he’d choked. It was weird hearing those sorts of sounds from someone else. Still, she bangs the headboard harder.

“Oh baby, yes, please d-don’t—“ she calls to the wall. The steps outside resume very, very quietly. She hears the two couples outside whispering to themselves and she grins just as Kylo lets out a rather loud hiss.

 _Wow…_ comes from outside their door.

Rey laughs into the crook of her elbow as she hears two doors slam closed, probably trying to inform them that there were other people upstairs. She only bangs the headboard harder. Kylo’s body still pressed against it bounces slightly back and forth, only adding his weight to the push against the paper-thin room. She pinches her eyes closed, trying to draw in air.

“ _OH!_ ” She calls again, grabbing the bottle from Ren and then taking a swig. Kylo takes over the headboard banging, leaving her to remove her hands and wipe at her runny nose.

“You like that?” He adds, pressing his forehead into the wall so that his voice projects out farther, dropping his tone to something far too sexy, “tell me you like that.”

Rey chokes this time.

“Oh that’s unfair,” she whispers to him. Kylo shrugs, giving the headboard one particularly hard shove. Rey moves on the bed, bouncing slightly on her knees to make it squeak.

“Hey, this was your idea,” he replies for her ears only.

“ _Y-YES!_ ” she fakes, shaking the bed. It could probably collapse under their added weight. Kylo smirks and bangs the headboard.

“Oh yes, baby,” he growls louder than necessary, then smacks his hand hard on his own forearm. To her ears, it sounds like a hand slapping a backside. Her ass falls back on the bed into a sitting position and Rey cackles silently. It hurts her sides. “Yes, yes. Fuck, Rey,” he moans.

Rey has to blink hard at hearing her name, but she started this, so she goes back up on her knees and moves forward. The bed squeaks loudly.

“Oh, O-oh, _OH!_  Kylo, I’m going to—“ she moans, gasping between each word. Kylo slaps his arm again and grunts loudly.

“Cum for me, baby, do it.”

He arches an eyebrow at her to take over as he grabs the wine bottle and drinks from it.

They hear a door open and close quickly. Another warning to be quiet. They ignore it.

“Oh, fuck, yes! _Yes!_ ” Rey whines and Kylo joins in the chanting.

“Cum for me. You like it when I do that?” Another slap to the arm. She can see the reddening fingerprints. “Tell me how much you like it. Tell me how much you like it when I _fuck_ you!”

If she wasn’t trying so hard to keep a straight face, Rey would have just about died. He emphasizes the word and nearly shouts it in a growl, and Rey shakes her head frantically.

“Oh, oh!” She calls, and he increases the pace of the headboard slamming. Rey in turn shakes the bed with her knees, faster, faster, and to anyone listening, damn they must be having some amazing sex. “F-fuck! I love it. Please, please…” she begs. Kylo almost skips on a hard shove and looks at her. Rey shrugs.

“Hey, you upped the stakes,” she whispers at his astounded face. Kylo grunts loud to the wall and slams the headboard with particularly hard force. That might peel off some of the paint. He lets out another breathy grunt, and then—

“FUCK!” He shouts.

It’s raw and drawn out like a growl from inside of him and Rey almost stutters at the noise, remembering just long enough to also let out some rude climaxing sounds. She slows the rocking of the bed down.

From the other side of the hall she can hear a not so subtly quiet ‘talk about _stamina’_. Rey collapses on the bed laughing. Tired laughing.

People laughed after they orgasmed hard enough, right? Kylo shakes his head and sits back down, leaning against the headboard.

“You _do_ have little horns on you,” he whispers so quietly she almost misses it. Rey smirks.

“We’re not done yet,” she tells him, also a little louder than necessary. Ren’s — _Kylo’s —_ eyebrows rise.

“What, you mean you want a second round?” He calls towards the wall in what passes for affectionate praise.

And so they spend the rest of the night drinking their bottle of wine and chuckling between fake sessions.

By the time they end their hilarious charade, it’s closer to three in the morning.

“Do you think that’s enough punishment?” She asks, leaning in to whisper it in his ear. She feels him shiver as his hair shakes around her mouth.

“I think you’re trying to kill all of us.” He murmurs back. “You’ll pay for not getting sleep later.”

Rey shrugs. “Worth it.”

Kylo shakes his head, taking the empty bottle from her fingers and finally putting it on the night table. Then Rey remembers.

“Oh!” She whispers, digging around between the flower petals until she finds a little packet with a condom in it. Kylo stares at it and purses his lips. “A present.”

She gets up, walking towards her bag, which had been curiously moved to the top of the closet. She hops a little to grab it, then opens it, trying hard not to focus on the fact that it had been opened by someone other than herself, before she finds what she’s looking for. Her conditioner.

She cracks the foil packet open with her teeth and pulls out the rubbery condom, then squirts some conditioner into it and rubs it around from the outside. Kylo’s biting down on his lip extra hard to keep from laughing. She shoots him a conspiratorial smirk then promptly drops it into the mesh waste basket, where it can be clearly seen.

“There,” she nods to herself then returns to the bed, standing by Ren’s legs.

“We should shake the petals off the bed, Sweetie,” she says in her normal voice, sure that Penny would hear it. Stupid Penny and her stupid waste of plant life.

Ren grunts and swings his legs off, casually dropping a “So you just rode me to exhaustion and now you want me to pick up _petals_?”

Rey throws her head back in silent laughter and for it she’s rewarded with a smile from Ren. They both shake their heads as they get to shoving all the petals on the floor. Penny could deal with the mess. It had been her idea after all.

They hear hushed murmurs from the other rooms.

Finally, once all petals have been unceremoniously brushed off the sheets, Ren and Rey stand staring at each other. He lowers his voice to a tiny whisper.

“I really can take the floor,” he murmurs. “The bed’s too small anyway.”

Rey shakes her head.

Not only had he paid for their stay, she’d kept him up until three in the morning with these shenanigans. “No, it’s fine. I promise you, I’m fine. What happened was…”

Rey takes in a deep breath. “Look, you were kind. And… I know you won’t touch me, okay? So, just take the damn half of the bed and sleep, and we’ll be out of here in the morning.”

Ren looks at his boots and grunts, then gets to kicking them off, one first then the other by the heel. Rey sits on the creaky bed and kicks off the flip flops Penny had provided her since her shoes had gotten wet. Then they look at each other awkwardly. The natural order of things would be clothes.

Ren tilts his head towards the plastic curtain. “That’s the shower. You can undress there.”

Rey looks at it. It’s just barely frosted and she can make out the shape of a room behind it. It hardly looked functional. “I’ll just sleep in my clothes.”

Ren nods. “Well, then _I_ am taking a shower.”

Rey crawls into bed and under the comforter before he can say anything else, avoiding his eyes as he digs in his bag and looks for his usual sleeping clothes. He walks off with them and Rey promptly plants her eyes out the small window by the bed, staring out into moonlit yard.

In the morning she would cause more of a fuss, perhaps ask a sleep deprived Penny if they could try playing Truth or Kiss again. Rey smirks. The woman would never agree to it after the results she’d gotten for her efforts.

The light in the shower stall goes on and she hears a muttered curse about the shower head’s height and about hot water. She sighs as she feels her own body become unbearably warm under the blankets. Rey undoes her jeans, wiggling out of them and then draping them at the foot of the bed. She’d be fine. Ren is a gentleman.

She stares out the window a little longer, trying to bring in air through tired lungs from her earlier shouting, and closes her eyes. Three in the morning.

She’d pay for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, a glorious, glorious thanks to EjBlaKit and IshaRen for helping me beta this. It was hilarious and I love you guys <3 
> 
> Second, I hope you all enjoyed the hilarity. Props to all who guessed Penny was up to something, ;) and ty to IshaRen for "snotterfall." It just had to happen.
> 
> Next chapter we get Kylo's POV. Oh, boy.
> 
> Comments, Kudos, subscriptions, shares, bookmarks, and your general enthusiasm always loved and always welcome. You guys make this story a lot more fun to write and share!


	14. Hot & Cold

Kylo walks into the bathroom and switches the light on. It’s the size of a shoebox. The whole shoebox is the shower. There’s a small sink on the opposite wall under a double hung window, with a mirror sitting on the window sill, and two pegs with white fluffy towels on the wall where he hangs his clothes.

He leans over the sink and looks at himself in the mirror. This is the longest he’s gone without shaving and there’s the beginnings of a goatee and a mustache there. It takes him ten seconds to decide whether to keep it. When he walks back into the room his eyes immediately travel to the bed. Rey’s asleep already. Kylo shakes his head, rummaging in his bag for toiletries before heading back into the shoebox, running the tap. His mind vaguely registers the cold.

Three in the morning. The absurdity of his life washes over him as he slathers his cheeks then takes a razor to them.

 _What are you doing?_ He asks himself, careful not to cut his cheeks, the new chant that had replaced his silver linings mantra in a matter of days. The razor clanks dully against the sink as he busies himself with turning his cheeks smooth.

He had to admit to himself that the whole fake-sex fiasco had been hilarious, though a big part of that had been the half bottle of wine he’d consumed. Still, it bothered him. And it bothered him that _it bothered him._

He’d played along for her sake, giving in to Rey’s demand of exacting revenge on the meddlesome Penny, but hearing his name on her lips had not been what he’d expected.

He stills his hand before he can cut himself. The last time he’d heard his name moaned like that had been in a different life, now so far removed from the last four days of his existence. He shoves that thought out of his mind and finishes shaving.

Showering forces him to perform acrobatics as he tries to angle himself under the too-low shower head so he can wash his hair. Number one item on his to-do list once he got to Dingle would be to replace all showers somehow to ensure he could actually _shower_ under them. Rey would have no problem, though.

That thought stops him in his track.

He takes in a deep breath.

_What are you doing?_

He cringes, running through the list of things he’d done, and he thinks of the condom. At having shown it to her.

What’s a man supposed to do when someone else gives you a condom, a bottle of wine, and a pat on the back with a wink about making _your lady_ _happy_? Kylo grunts to himself, then clicks his teeth to silence the sound, remembering the sleeping girl. The water steams around him and he sighs. He’d deposit her in Dublin in the morning and this whole thing would be over, then—

Then…

Then he’d go on his way, stashing the memories away for some day when he could tell this ridiculous story to someone and have a good laugh over it. When he finishes and dresses himself, he walks back out and grabs his phone. Almost four in the morning. He scrolls through the growing list of missed messages and calls, ignoring all of them. The one blessing about having no signal had been not receiving a single call. The second they’d landed in Martin and Penny’s house the messages had started to flood in. He sets an alarm for himself then puts the phone away next to the empty bottle on the small night table.

Right.

Now to deal with more pressing matters. He looks at the tiny bed. Rey’s pressed up to the wall under the blankets, already having wrapped herself up in them. He looks around for another comforter without luck.

_Of course not._

Fine.

Kylo eases himself into the tiny bed, trying his hardest not to make it creak or jostle the sleeping woman. When his head hits the pillow, he lets out a breathy grunt. There’s not enough space. He lies on his back, knees bent at a forty five degree angle, and laces his hands on his stomach, tucking in his elbows and pushing his feet under the comforter just enough to keep them warm. Part of him already regrets leaving his wide king bed and spacious bedroom in LA to collect dust.

Sleep comes slowly, and as the hours pass he shifts, the rigid bend to his knees easing as he unconsciously looks for the nearest source of warmth; the room chills by degrees until he’s shivering. His half asleep mind berates him for finally giving in and lifting Rey’s comforter. He scoots in, careful not to touch her, finally having lost the battle between sharing the sheets or freezing his ass off. Sharing the sheets it would be. It’s ridiculously warm compared to the rest of the room and the heat finally lulls him into unconsciousness.

Not a bad way to fall asleep.

When dreams come, they’re dreams of mossy fields and golden green, sunlit afternoons. They’re pleasant dreams. He hadn’t had those for a long time. His mind’s eye places him somewhere on a field full of tiny pinkish flowers overseeing the sea. He could stay there forever, in the warmth of the sun, staring out into the open skies and deep blue waters.

Kylo’s chest rumbles pleasantly as he nuzzles his face into something impossibly warm. Warm as the sunshine inside his dreams. He curls, pulls it to him, that warmth.

He could stay there forever.

Or, really, just for a little while.

Though it’s honestly getting a little warm… maybe not a long while.

_Wait, why is it so warm?_

His brain slips out of his groggy sleep. His face is buried in something… silky. A flash of rain and floral shampoo hits his senses and his eyes snap open.

Hair. A particular brand of hair, smelling of a particular brand of shampoo. Awareness floods to his limbs at flash speed. His arm is tangled between the sheets and a soft curve, trapped under the hook of an arm that isn’t his; his knees are bent into the back of another set of knees, a chest to his chest, and an impossibly soft lower…

His body reacts and Kylo has to keep himself from jerking away and bolting out of the bed. Rey’s spooned into his much larger body, sleeping away contentedly as she draws in air in a calm, steady pattern.

 _Fuck_.

He can feel himself edging towards that awkward hardening every man experiences at least once, and Rey’s body heat and closeness isn’t helping. He pushes his hips back away from her to get some much needed space, immediately noticing the loss of heat.

Kylo frowns.

Heat. It’s far too hot. Kylo untangles his forearm slowly from her hold on it, then very, very carefully brings his hand up to her forehead. She’s burning.

 _Fuck_.

This time it has nothing to do with bodily reactions.

When he finally manages to pry himself away from her and get out from under the sheets, Kylo slowly turns her by the shoulder until she’s sleeping on her back. Her cheeks are flushed despite the pallor to the rest of her face, and her expression is locked in a frown, tiny beads of sweat starting at the baby hairs at her temple. A raging fever.

He sighs.

“Rey?” He asks, shaking her shoulder gently. “Rey, wake up.”

Rey groans and tries to roll away from him, curling up into fetal position. He has to slowly turn her again until she’s on her back so he can look at her face.

“Rey, you’re burning up. Wake up.”

Her eyes flutter slowly as if her mind is being dragged away painfully from where her consciousness sleeps. He holds his breath for a moment before, running large fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her forehead and her temples, pushing it behind her ears. Her ears are heated to about ten billion degrees. He purses his lips.

“Rey, sweetheart, you need to wake up.” He whispers, eyes dancing over her features, the endearment slipping out of his mouth mindlessly. When she finally opens her eyes they’re glassy, red and unfocused.

“Finn?” Rey croaks. Her voice is almost gone, reduced to the high-pitched whistle of somebody whose vocal chords have stopped working. Her words make his heart squeeze. Kylo stills.

“No,” he murmurs. “Kylo. Are you alright? Do you need anything?”

Rey gives him a smile. A wide, toothy smile that could blind. It’s the most beautiful and sincere smile he’s seen on her, even if it’s weak from sickness. She untangles her arms from under the sheets and Kylo tenses as she drapes them over his shoulders, burying her fingers into his hair and pulling him to her. He doesn’t know what this Finn character looks like, but by the way she nuzzles her searing hot face into the crook of his neck, she must certainly love him immensely.

Kylo breathes in deeply, heat tangled with floral shampoo, then slowly pries open her hold on his shoulders before leaning back.

“Rey,” he repeats, “I’m not Finn.”

“Oh,” she murmurs, but her eyes have already closed. She’s not paying attention. He shakes his head then walks to the closet. There are no towels there. He grabs his bag, shuffling clothes around for anything he can use. Kylo grabs one of his clean white t-shirts and walks over to the sink, running the water until it’s ice cold before soaking the shirt and wringing it. When he returns he finds the hottest place on her, her neck, and drapes the damp, cool fabric over it. Rey lets out a soft, pleased sigh.

“I’ll be back,” he murmurs to the room since Rey’s no longer listening.

Of course she’d have a fever.

He thinks back to the last forty eight hours of nothing but Rey recklessly running around in the rain, Rey getting dunked in a hot bath, Rey barely getting any proper sleep for two days, running on nothing but adrenaline, then downing a rather large amount of alcohol after repeated stress. Her immune system had been ground to nothing.

When he makes his way down to the stairs, he finds his hosts already at the table, enjoying early tea for breakfast.

“Oh good morning!” Penny greets. She doesn’t sound as peppy as she’d like to, though, and he notices the puffy bags under her eyes. Martin is bent over his tea with a newspaper, and only gives him a nod before pointedly focusing on the news. He, too, looks exhausted. If Rey hadn’t been upstairs burning up with a fever, he would have smiled.

“Good morning,” Kylo says, “I hope you two slept well.”

Penny gives him a side glance before planting a smile on her face. “Oh, you know… Wonderful… once we were able to fall asleep, of course. Such a fun night amongst friends!”

Kylo smiles, trying to hide his self satisfaction. He’d have to tell Rey. Once he could get her conscious, that is. That reminds him what he’d come here to do.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your breakfast but Re— My wife is upstairs with a fever. It’s been a long trip and she got a little wet. Do you by any chance have medicine I could give her?”

That perks Penny up.

“A fever! Oh dear, oh dear.” Penny says, pushing her chair back. “That won’t do.” She grabs Kylo’s arm and he has to force himself not to tense under her touch as he’s dragged away towards the kitchen. “That poor, poor thing! I have some remedies that might help, don’t worry!”

So Penny sets about to chattering his ear off while he sits on a small chair, worrying as the minutes pass that he’s not upstairs checking on the feverish girl. Penny brews up some concoction with lemon in the tea, some long-revered family recipe to cure all ailments. When he asks about over the counter medication, Penny scoffs at him, shoving a tray into his hands.

“That nonsense?! No, no. Here, give her this. She’ll feel better in no time.”

Kylo glares at the tea, bodily refraining from pinching his nose. Instead he gives Penny a pleasant smile. “Do you at least have tylenol?”

Penny examines him for a moment before turning her nose up at him with a sigh.

“You young people and your dependency on drugs,” she replies, but walks off to a cabinet and pulls out a tiny bottle of tylenol. She dispenses two into the tray then looks at him, startled. “Oh! Dear, I almost forgot. Martin and I will be leaving soon to go to Dublin!”

Kylo tenses, “I’m sorry?”

Penny sighs, a long, drawn out thing. “Well, you see… The other couple has already checked out this morning, and we remembered you’d only booked for the night, so we’d made plans to go visit family. But your poor lovely wife is now sick, that won’t do! Still…” Penny worries at her lip, mumbling to herself, one hand wrapped around her middle. “One moment, dear.”

She walks off, leaving Kylo standing stupidly holding a small tray with miracle tea, so he makes to follow. He finds Penny and Martin bent into each other, talking in hushed tones.

“Is there a problem?” He asks, already running through a mental list of possible ways to get Rey out of here and somewhere else in her state.

“Oh, no no,” Penny says. She gives him a once over. “Well, you have certainly been a gentleman and trustworthy enough!”

“What?”

“My sister is expecting us, so… would you mind being left here by yourselves for a handful of days?”

He lets out a sigh of relief.

“Of course,” he replies. “Please, let me know how much we’d owe you. I can make the payment ahead of time.”

Kylo forks over the card, tray balanced carefully, before Penny can blink. He tells Martin to charge it as soon as he’s told the cost then excuses himself and bolts up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Just as he’s turning the corner upstairs he hears Penny.

_“Oh poor dear. But look how worried he is. It’s almost like in Pride and Prejudice! So romantic.”_

Kylo shakes his head. Romantic indeed.

Rey’s shifted again, face towards the wall, balled into a fetal position under the sheets. He sighs, placing the tea on the bedside table. The small surface is starting to get crowded with an empty bottle and his phone. He needs her to sit up.

So Kylo does the only thing he can, which is to slip into bed and call out her name. It works as he thought it would.

Rey turns around painfully slow, calls him Finn again, and tries to open her eyes. He shakes his head.

“Yes, it’s Finn,” he replies, sighing to himself as he wrestles his one arm under her shoulders and pulls her up into a sitting position. Rey groans again and he winces. “Come on, Rey, you have to sit up.” 

Rey’s head lolls, hitting his shoulder, and she slumps into him. He props her up carefully and looks at the tea. It’s still hot.

“Shhh,” he soothes, grabbing the mug and trying his best not to jostle Rey or dump hot tea into his lap. He brings it up to his lips and takes a sip to make sure it’s not scalding. It’s surprisingly sweet and pleasant. Kylo blows into it to cool it down, one hand cradling the side of Rey’s head on his shoulder to keep her up.

“Rey?” He asks, turning to her. “Sweetheart, I need you to open your eyes now.”

He doesn’t even think about the endearment. It’s a leftover reaction from watching his father during those few instances when he would dote on his mother. It falls from his lips and is forgotten just as quickly as he takes Rey in.

Rey’s lashes flutter. He blows into the tea again.

“Rey?”

“Mmmmm?” Her sleepy, whistley vocal chords let out.

“Open your eyes,” he orders. Her fever’s still raging and she’s dozing in and out. She finally pries them open just long enough for him to place the cup under her nose. “Good girl. Now drink some of this.”

Just as he guides Rey gently towards the cup Kylo’s mind veers off again.

He’s turning into a nanny.

That’s the only way he could describe this situation: He’s a nanny who’s now also playing nurse.

Rey takes a sip of her miracle tea and whimpers as it hits the back of her throat, and so he moves his hand from her head to rub gently on her back.

“There, good girl,” he praises. Rey leans back and slumps against his shoulder again, so he takes the moment to set the tea down and grab the tylenol.

“Now open up for me. You need to take this tylenol,” he murmurs. He places the pills against her mouth, the heat of her lips searing into his fingertips. “Open up.”

Rey obliges, lips parting gently. Somewhere in her fever-addled mind, his commands are getting through. He pops them in and then brings the tea back up. “Now drink.”

She almost gags on the pills as they go down, and after a weak coughing fit that he eases with a hand to her back, Rey lets out a soft little pained moan.

“You did good,” he whispers, knowing she probably won’t remember. “Now get some sleep.”

Kylo leans over to try and set her back down when Rey’s hands move up. She plants it on his face, fingers splayed, searching for something familiar, tentative fingertips pushing into his cheeks.

“So soft,” she mutters. Kylo’s breath warms his cheeks as it bounces against her palm, and Kylo forces his face to remain still. Then her hand slumps and she falls right back to sleep. Kylo shakes his head, lowering her gently onto her pillow.

Sick people.

He takes the almost empty tea cup and the tray downstairs, only to find that Penny and Martin have already gone. There’s a slip of paper on the table pinned down with his credit card.

_Thank you so much for looking over our house!_

_I hope your wife feels well soon. Make yourselves at home. We’ll be back in three days._

_Meds are in the kitchen pantry, and please do feed the chickens and rabbits!_

There’s a small list of things he needs to do concerning the animals, which he shrugs his shoulders at — it’s no big deal —  and a breakdown of what had been charged to his card. He pockets the card and pins the letter to the small refrigerator in the kitchen before opening it.

The thing is fully stocked, which is a pleasant surprise. Kylo grabs some of the chicken from the previous night, thankful that the bones were kept, and digs for ingredients.

He walks to the garden and grabs celery and carrots, cleaning them and chopping them while the chicken bones are reduced to a broth.

The leftover chicken is shredded and tossed into it, then the chopped vegetables.

Noodles follow, and some time later he’s got chicken noodle soup. Kylo pops two pieces of bread into the toaster as the soup is ladled into a flowery china bowl, then takes Rey’s meal up the stairs. When he walks in again she’s, once more, curled up into a ball. He frowns.

That seemed like a really awkward way of sleeping all the time.

He sets the tray carefully on the bed before moving the empty bottle of wine to the trash can and pocketing his phone, freeing up the space for her food, and repeats the same process as before. A little bit of gentle guidance, of playing Finn, and Rey is once more cradled into his side as he coaxes her to open up and eat.

By the time she’s finally eaten she’s almost awake. She looks at him with tired, unseeing eyes.

“What happened?” She asks, confused. Kylo snorts.

“You should have gone to sleep earlier. Eat,” he murmurs, offering her another spoonful of soup, Rey eats it without complaint. She’s surprisingly agreeable to his bossing her around when she’s sick. “You have a fever.”

He sets the spoon down in what’s left of the soup and touches her forehead, her cheek, the side of her neck. The temperature’s only gone down slightly. “And now, you need to sleep.”

Kylo ends up tucking her in, then watches her as she falls asleep again.

Three days.

He could make it through three days.

He pulls out his phone and hops on the internet, looking for the nearest doctor in case he needs to call one. The nearest town hospital is twenty miles away. What did people do if they got sick and couldn't go anywhere around here? Kylo decides then and there that he’d pay whatever exorbitant amount of money necessary in order to make the doctors come to him instead. He wasn’t about to end up with a dead girl on his hands.

Now that Rey’s been fed and medicated, he steps outside and walks around in the quiet. It’s sunny, for once. The animals had been fed already, Penny had mentioned, which meant he had a whole lot of time on his hands and nothing to do with it but tend to a sick girl. He walks back in, finding a bookshelf and picking a book without reading the title, before making it back to Rey and scooting himself into bed.

The next few hours are spent barely reading the book on his lap and regularly checking on Rey. The miracle tea must have helped, because her breathing’s slowed and her temperature’s gone down slightly. Kylo stares at the empty room. He spaces out, only to be disrupted by Rey. She’s turned around and found her way to him, pushing her face into the side of his thigh, an arm coming out of the blankets to drape across his lap as she cuddles into him like one would into a pillow.

He sighs.

“Rey?”

Rey lets out a weak, sleepy groan.

“Do you need something?” Kylo asks, not quite expecting an answer. She only rubs her nose into his jeans and squeezes his lap closer. Kylo’s lips tighten as he wills his body to _not_ respond. He looks down at her, then pulls out his phone from his pocket. It’s barely two in the afternoon. He’d need to wake her up soon to get her to eat and drink. His ears pick up on her huffy, stuffed up breathing as she tries to get air through her nose and fails, pulling it in through her mouth instead.

He shakes his head.

“Rey?” He asks again, but Rey doesn’t move. He brings his hand to her hair, giving her temple a gentle stroke to try and wake her. Nothing happens. Or, at least, nothing but Rey letting out a small, happy sigh, her face relaxing. Kylo stares at her, removing his hand and earning a protested whine from the fevered girl.

So, of course, instead of getting up to go cook, Kylo opens up his book with his free hand then returns the other to Rey’s head, mindlessly stroking her hair while she breathes hot, sticky air into his thigh. He fails to retain anything on Irish history for the next few hours.

That night Kylo goes room by room and collects all the comforters, spreading them on the floor and making himself a makeshift bed out of heavy, fluffy blankets and a handful of pillows. He lies flat on his back and listens to Rey struggling to breathe on the bed, sighing. He’d tended to her all day, left to his own devices now that there were no Penny and Martin to terrorize. He laces his fingers on his chest, worrying at his lower lip, listening to Rey. It goes on for a while, until she once again makes a sound.

“Peanut,” floats to his ears. Kylo frowns.

“What?”

“Peanut...” Rey repeats.

Kylo shakes his head, breathing in deeply and closing his eyes. He drapes an arm over his face to keep all light out. He has to admit playing nanny is exhausting, and he hadn’t had a true break. He’s not about to get one now.

“Peanut? Finn…? I’m…cold…” she murmurs between breathy sighs. Kylo sits up and reaches over, feeling her forehead. She’s slick with sweat and both cold and hot all at the same time. Her fever must be breaking.

Kylo gets up and with a grunt collects all of the comforters he’d gathered, draping them over Rey. She relaxes minimally.

“Thanks, Finn,” she murmurs, eyes shut tight. He shakes his head for what feels like the billionth time.

“You’re welcome, Rey.”

“Peanut,” she repeats, then takes in a deep shuddery breath. “I’m your peanut.”

Oh.

Suddenly it all made sense. His eyes widen slightly, his mind traveling to a time he’d compared her to a peanut. She’d broken out into a genuine laugh then. His ears burn. So that’s why.

He looks at the floor, at the brand new lack of blankets, then back at the bed. With yet another grunt he pushes his boots off and scrambles in, making sure to give her most of the blankets so he wouldn’t burn to death. Rey moves towards body heat like a moth to a flame. She immediately drapes herself over him, legs and arms taking over his torso and his thighs, and Kylo stiffens.

This is not happening.

Kylo tries to untangle himself but she only holds on tighter, and his brain screams in alarm when her face buries back into his neck.

This. Is. Not. Happening.

“Rey,” he grunts, hands on her slender arm as he tries to pry it away from his chest. She clings tight onto his t-shirt.

“I’m your peanut…” she murmurs, nuzzling him, and he swallows hard, then nearly suffocates on the swallow when she brushes her lips into his jawline. “And you’re my peanut.”

_No. No, no, no, no._

“Rey, I’m not your peanut,” he almost stutters, shifting his body weight to try and move away. She follows. He looks over the side. One more shift and he’ll fall off. Kylo’s hands dig under the blankets to try and move her thigh and—

It’s bare.

He curses.

She’d removed her jeans and he hadn’t even noticed. Soft, smooth skin burns into his palms with a coursing fever.

_NO. NO. NO._

He groans to himself in irritation — and frustration, even if he won’t admit it to himself — and wraps his palm into the crook of her bent knee which is sitting uncomfortably close to his crotch, trying to lift it up and away from him; his nostrils flare at the softness, at the burning temperature, and he screws his eyes shut.

This cannot be happening. Rey only shuffles closer, her knee grazing his crotch. He must be paying for something. Her hand has started to move, and she lets out a sad, desperate whine that’s probably very fever induced but also something else, something darker. He needs to get out of bed. Her one hand moves from his chest to his face then further until tangles into his hair at his ear, fingers tightening close to his scalp. He can’t move without it tugging, so he stares at the ceiling as Rey plants an open mouthed kiss to his jaw.

_Fuck._

_“Rey,_ ” he pleads. “Stop. You’re feverish. I’m not Finn. Do you hear me? I’m not your boyfriend.”

“Of course you are,” Rey croons into his ear, nuzzling his earlobe, and his traitorous body reacts in the form of an electrifying shiver running down his spine and a quickly hardening erection. He grunts, but since he can’t dislodge her, his hands only keep her thighs from moving up towards it. Her lips move towards his neck and he nearly falls out of the bed in his haste to remove himself. Her limbs fall lifelessly back onto the bed, where he’d been. When he takes in her face, Rey’s eyes are closed. She hadn’t even opened them. She’d been acting this out in her sleep the whole time.

Kylo paces the three steps it takes him to reach the opposite side of the room while silently cursing a very colorful string of words, running his hands through his hair, the ghost of her fingers still searing into his scalp.

Nope. Nope. He would _not_ go into that bed again. He looks down at his jeans and curses with even more enthusiasm at the slight tenting of his jeans. With a muttered ‘ _fuck_ ’ he grabs his towel and enters the shower. Screw sleeping. A cold shower is in order.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have to feel bad for the man, seriously. Kylo having to play nurse and dealing with Rey's hot feverish actions. Sigh. Poor guy.
> 
> But they're stuck here for three more days!
> 
> Always thankful to EjBlaKit for being a wonderful beta <3 [go read her stuff](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EjBlaKit/pseuds/EjBlaKit). 
> 
> And finally thank you to all who have shared this story, kudo'd it, bookmarked it, subscribed, and a special thank you to those of you who've taken the time to comment and reach out on tumblr. You guys make me feel like I'm not just publishing into a void, so thank you <3 Your support and enthusiasm is always appreciated!


	15. Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey wakes up from her fever and finally gets a hold of Finn.  
> Whoever said things went well around here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra Thank You to those of you who take the time to read and comment, because I'm one of those people whose writerly fuel tank runs on interaction with my readers. Remember to fuel up your local writer person, friends.

Rey wakes up with a parched throat, aching bones, and a pounding headache that immediately makes her want to pluck her eyes out. When she finally manages to pry them open, the room’s bathed in early morning light, the air cold against her cheeks, and the weight of blankets crushing her into the bed.

Wait.

She tries to shift. Too many blankets. Rey frowns and tries to push at them, but her limbs are weak and she only manages a half-hearted shove. She turns her head to look at the man sleeping next to her––

He’s not there.

“Ren?” Rey asks immediately, her voice coming out in a croaky squeak. Rey slowly pushes herself under the blankets until she’s on his side. It’s cold. She calls out to him again and hears a grunt coming from the floor. Rey looks over and her eyes widen to saucers, only for them to hurt from the added sunlight. She squints instead and suppresses a groan, her voice coming out in an unnatural rasp.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asks, trying to prop herself on an elbow. That doesn’t quite work either.

Ren’s on the floor with a flimsy blanket, a rather large selection of pillows, dressed in a hoody, sweatpants, and socks, and covering his eyes with an obnoxiously large bicep. He grunts again.

“Sleeping,” he mumbles, only to try and roll away. Rey frowns.

“Why are you on the floor?” she asks, confused.

She’d asked him to sleep in the bed the previous night, after their payback to Penny. Rey rubs her fingers against her eye, trying to ease up the pain, and pinches her nose. Why is the room so fuzzy around the edges? She must have had too much to drink. “I thought I said you could share the bed last night.”

Kylo turns back around, removing his arm from his eyes and giving her a deeply confused look, brows furrowed and golden gaze pinned on hers. His head tilts sideways, messy hair falling around his large ears while he studies her, then he props himself up on his elbows. It brings him a little close, so Rey leans back a bit and rests her head on his side’s pillow.

“What do you mean, last night?” Kylo asks, his tone that of a man who hasn’t seen a whole lot of rest. Perhaps she shouldn’t have kept him up until three in the morning. He sounds a little rough around the edges, perhaps the beginning of a cold? Guilt twists in her stomach. Still, she focuses on his words, even if it takes a little effort.

“You know, after the…” she points to the trash can, to where she knows there’s a condom, except the trash can’s now empty. Rey frowns. She could have sworn she’d put that condom in there. Granted, she’d been a little tipsy and all, but her memory’s not _that_ bad, right?

Except it really is.

Kylo reaches up and touches her forehead, and Rey nearly bonks her head on the headboard rearing away from it. His frown intensifies. He kneels up and pulls her face to him by placing a hand behind her neck, tugging her closer.

“Stop,” he says, then once again cups her forehead. Rey blinks.

“What’re you doing?” she asks, lips pursed tight and swallowing hard. It feels like she’d rubbed her esophagus down with sandpaper. Kylo ignores her demand, inspecting her face, her eyes, her lips, then back up. His frown only seems to intensify, if that could even be possible.

“Do you not— Oh, Lord, you don’t,” he finally groans out, flopping himself back on his makeshift bed on the floor and throwing his arm back over his eyes, head falling heavy on his pillow. “Great. Beautiful.”

Rey frowns.

“I don’t what?” she asks, pursing her lips and glaring at him. The pounding behind her eyes intensifies. This was _not_ how she wanted to wake up. She takes him in, glossy hair usually so well tamed flying wild around his head on the pillow like an onyx halo.

Kylo lets out a breathy grunt and moves his arm just enough that he can peek at her from over the crook of his elbow, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, I guess it could be worse,” he mutters to himself, then sits up and, after digging around on the bedside table, pulls up his phone and shows her the time and the date. Rey narrows her eyes at it, trying to stop the fuzzy edges around her vision. It only lasts long enough for her eyes to widen into saucers at the date.

“Wait,” she mutters, yanking his phone out of his hand and bringing it closer to her face even as panic starts bubbling up in her gut. “No.”

Kylo simply watches her, arms on knees where he sits on the floor, cautiously angling himself so that were she to stand, she won’t stomp all over him.

“No,” another breathy word escapes her as she looks at him, and Kylo absentmindedly bites on the inside of his cheek.

“You were sick,” he says, twisting the edge of one of the blankets hanging over the side between his fingers. The man always seems to be in need of something to do with his hands. “Delirious, actually.”

“NO!” She cries, barely managing to get out of bed. And she tries. She tries to stand up and run to go get her phone, so she can call Finn, who must surely be worried sick out of his mind, when her legs tangle in the same mountain of blankets and she careens straight into Kylo. The giant of a man only just manages to catch her by the waist, yet when falling out of a bed in a tangle of sheets, there’s no way to do it gracefully.

Her arms swing, one elbow smacking right into his jaw, the other hand barely managing to land on his stomach before her chin hits his shoulder. Kylo lets out a loud curse and Rey lets out a scream, her tongue having caught between her teeth. She can taste blood as she collapses in an ungraceful lump in his arms, Kylo’s giant arms having shot out to catch and engulf her in an attempt to get her upright. Rey’s eyes are watery and she whimpers as she looks up, tasting the metallic tang of her blood against her teeth. Kylo’s trying to work his jaw out from potential dislocation, and she can’t help but see the sheen of tears in his eyes as well.

She untangles herself from his arms and tries to sit up, and it isn’t until he uses a hand to her thigh to right her that Rey jumps.

“I need to call Finn,” she says hurriedly through the pain. Her tongue positively _hurts_. Kylo frowns at her, but moves out of the way to let her pass. Rey runs towards her phone, uncaring that she’s basically in her underwear, and digs her phone out of her bag. When she turns around Kylo’s averted his eyes, choosing instead to take on a practiced study of the curtains’s ugly pattern. She looks at her phone.

No battery.

“Fuck,” she mutters, then bolts out of the room for the stairs, uncaring that she’s still in her underwear. It’s not like the man hadn’t seen her legs before. There’s no sight of Penny and Martin, but her brain’s too busy elsewhere to notice. She latches onto the phone as soon as she gets there and dials, fingers flying over the old buttons as she holds in a breath.

Please pick up.

Please pick up.

Nothing.

“UGH!” she nearly screams, turning around only to see Kylo slowly walking down the stairs, hands inside his sweatpants’ pockets. He comes to stand at the foot of the stairs and Rey only has just enough time to notice how beautiful he looks leaning against the stair’s post, tall and imposing, features cleverly clear of any expression as he regards her.

“You can use my phone, if you’d like,” he finally offers, his voice a rumble. Rey swallows then stares at the old phone on the wall.

“It's fine. He’s not picking up anyway,” she says, then looks at him with disbelieving eyes. “A whole day? I was out a whole day?”

Ren nods.

She could cry. Finn would have expected her in Dublin by now. She should have been, for all intents and purposes, calling Finn her fiance right now rather than her boyfriend. Instead she’s here at a meddlesome couple’s bed and breakfast with the only person she knows in this whole country, and _knowing_ Kylo Ren is a bit of a stretch. Kylo tilts his head lightly, warily, and the back of Rey’s neck heats as she gets a view of a thick, long neck. She looks away.

That’s not a bodily response she should be having. Up until the previous night — _two nights ago_ , she reminds herself — she could look at his neck and feel nothing. Her eyes swivel back on him as realization hits her.

“Did I—” she starts, swallowing. Rey knows of only two other times this has happened before: once, when she got drunk off her ass, and another when she was so feverish she’d come on strong with Finn. At least Finn was dating her at the time. _This_ man, however… “I’m sorry, you said I was… ah— delirious?”

“Fever,” Kylo corrects, brows furrowing, but she can see a creep of color making its way up his neck. “You really don’t remember?”

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

 _You really don’t remember_ is _not_ how she wanted to start this day.

Those words were _always_ trouble. Always.

Rey looks at him, and her fear must be plastered over her face because Kylo’s shoulders tense and he hunches in on himself a little, trying to make himself smaller.

“Nothing happened. You were running a temperature. I took care of you. Penny and Martin left for—“

“Wait, they what?” She asks. Rey looks around, realization dawning on her. She hadn’t seen Penny and Martin because they weren’t even there. Rey closes her eyes before she rounds on Kylo, voice taking on a rather shrill note. “What do you mean they left?"

"They had affairs in Dublin to deal with," he says, only for Rey to cut him off.

"Wait, so you mean they were on their way to _our_ destination?! Why are we even _here?!”_

“You were extremely sick,” he says, holding up a hand to keep her temper tantrum at bay, then narrows his eyes at her. “And if it’s quite alright with you, I wasn’t going to nurse a sick person on the road. So I paid for our stay while they’re gone the next three days. Perhaps a thank you is in order?”

Three-

“Three _days?!”_ Rey screeches. Maybe it’s a leftover of her fever, because she’s not quite in her right mind. That's insane. They weren't returning for three days? Did he expect them to just hang around housesitting for that long? No, she has to get a hold of Finn.

She bolts past Kylo, very nearly shoving him out of the way as she runs up the stairs. Her phone’s still on the bed. She finds the charger, and, as if on cue, Kylo once again appears and digs in his bag for his converter. He passes it to her with stiff fingers. Rey gives him a small look before muttering a thank you that’s barely audible to her ears much less his, then sets to waiting.

The time it takes for a phone to charge suddenly feels horribly long.

“I’ll… go get breakfast,” Kylo says to the room, as if unsure if he should even speak to her right now. Rey’s eyes are glued on the little phone screen.

It takes so long. So, so long.

Once it finally charges, Rey pounces on the device and unlocks it.

There’s a rush of old, incoming text messages:

 

 **From Finn: 12:59pm:**  
Hi Peanut, call me when you get this.

 

 **From Poe, 1:00pm:**  
Hi Rey! Heard you were in Ireland. Welcome! Can’t wait to see you. LET’S GET YOUR BOYFRIEND DRUNK!

 

 **From Finn, 1:02pm:**  
Hi Rey, please don’t pay attention to Poe. He’s got a few too many in him already. Call me when you can.

 

 **From Finn: 2:00pm:**  
Rey?

 

 **From Finn, 2:05pm:**  
Peanut? Are you not okay?

 

 **From Finn: 4:00pm:**  
You must be on the road but… as soon as you get this, call me. I got news.

 

 **From Finn: 4:21pm:**  
Rey? Did you get my message? If you did, I’m sorry I couldn’t get a hold of you. I tried. Trust me. I'm getting worried. Call me. 

 

And then there are about ten missed calls.

An obnoxious set of beeps later, Rey sees the two voicemails. She frowns, playing the first one on speaker. The sound of Finn’s lovely voice bounces around the room as she finally sets about putting on a pair of pants. Kylo walks up the stairs and leans against the doorframe, quietly munching on a piece of toast.

 

“ _Rey? Rey. I tried to reach you but you weren’t picking up. I assume you’re still traveling here. I just, I was hoping I could tell you this in person? Or, at least, via a conversation rather than a message. I just got news that we’re moving crew. Something happened and the magazine’s ordered us to up and go. They scheduled our flight already for this afternoon. I won’t be here when you get here…”_

 

Rey gapes at the phone. Kylo arches an eyebrow at it.

 

“ _When_ are _you getting here? No matter. I have left instructions with the hotel to forward you my address as soon as you get here.”_

 

Finn goes on to give her the hotel name.

 

“ _And I’ve already paid for you to stay a few days, if you want. Otherwise, here’s their number if you want to cancel.”_

 

The rest of the message is a bunch of rushed questions and explanations as to why he’s moving spots, Finn’s voice sporting an apologetic tone throughout the whole thing, and promising her that he would call her again as soon as he got to his destination.

A couple of days. Rey could wait a couple of days. She looks at Kylo.

There’s a second message.

 

“ _Rey? Why are you not picking up your phone? Did you lose it? I bet you lost it, you’re always losing everything. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders.”_

 

Hah, funny of him to say that, Finn the klutz who always keeps forgetting where he put his keys and burning pots because he forgets the water’s boiling. Dude could make a mean lasagna, though. Rey scowls at the phone. Had she been looking, she would have noticed the tiny quirk of Kylo’s lips drawing up, but Rey’s too busy fisting her hands at her sides and staring murder at the phone.

 

“ _Anyway, in_ case _you didn’t lose your phone. Please call me. We arrived in Portugal.”_

 

Portugal?! How had he not mentioned that the first time. Kylo clears his throat at the door and she looks up at him as he thumps at his chest, having choked on toast. It seems the giant man had the same thought. Rey snarls at the phone and crosses her arms, having nothing else to do but sit there, wanting to kick a table.

 

“ _We got our assignment today. It’s going to be a bit of a long stay.”_

 

_WHAT?!_

 

_“I’m sorry, peanut. Is it too late for you to get a plane ticket?”_

 

Rey breathes deep in through her nose, out through her mouth. Repeatedly. She doesn’t have the funds for a new plane ticket, and if she changes hers she won't be able to get home. As it was, her departure date was rapidly approaching. She could ask Finn for money, but no, she would not take Finn’s money, not when she’s so raving mad at him she could spit. Plus Finn barely has more than she does. She stands.

 

_“Well… call me. Let me know what your plans are. I am so sorry I couldn’t be there. I so want to see you! Miss you.”_

 

Rey can hear Finn’s muttered hopes about her hopefully not having lost her phone as he hangs up.

“Not how you wanted this to go, I take it?” Kylo asks, half eaten toast in his hand. Rey scowls.

“Does it sound like this is how I want it to go?” she snips, and Kylo drops his hand, wearing a scowl of his own.

“Hey, don’t take it out on me. This one’s not my fault, for once,” he says, voice lowering. Rey can almost swear that he grows taller, wider, by the second. She gulps and looks at the phone in her hand. He’s right, none of this his fault.

"Sorry." Rey stares at the room. “Now what?”

She knows exactly what happens next. And she avoids it, because her annoyance and disappointment might just get the best of her and she’s seriously far too wired up right now to deal with this. The headache she’s been carrying since she woke up only seems to make it worse, tiny floaters crossing her vision as Rey sits back down on the bed.

Fucking wonderful.

Finn had picked up and left to Portugal of all places, and Rey had not known because she’d been sick. How is this her life?

As if on cue, she shudders and sneezes, her nose itchy. Yep. Kylo hadn’t been lying. She’d been sick. She still is. Rey looks up at Kylo, guilt streaked on her face.

Right.

Might as well just do this now and get the pain over with.

“I’m sorry,” she says then lifts herself up off the bed and walks past him. “Excuse me.”

Kylo watches her go. She takes the stairs slowly, bare toes pressing into the creaking wooden planks, cold against the balls of her feet as Rey tries to bring her breathing and heartrate back down. This is _not_ what she’d wanted. She pops her neck once she’s at the bottom of the stairs then looks at the sitting room. She should go in there. There are old, well-worn couches she can take. The sunlight streaming through the windows catches her eye, though, and Rey remembers the hellish rain of days ago.

She walks outside instead.

The ground under her is warm and soft, and the dirt pushes in between her toes as Rey wanders to the back of the house towards the one white wrought-iron bench, gripping her phone in a death grip while staring at her feet. This could not possibly be happening.

Rey hits the speed dial, then listens carefully to the ringtone, praying Finn will pick it up. On the third, Rey hears his voice. She sits down on the bench and stares at her knees.

“ _PEANUT! Oh thank God._ ” Finn says, bubbling with excitement and relief.

“Hi,” she says, tone neutral. Before she can say anything else, Finn continues.

“ _Oh, Rey, I honestly thought you’d lost your phone. Are you okay? Are you in Dublin? Did you check in?_ ”

Finn’s questions keep rushing like a stream while Rey listens, playing with a red thread coming away from her shirt. The one she’d been wearing two days ago. Rey cringes. She’d need a shower as soon as this conversation was over.

“So you’re in Portugal now?” She asks, finally, after Finn starts picking up on her silence.

“ _I… Yeah. Look, I’m sorry. I know you were excited to see me, Rey,_ ” Finn pleads, “ _But this is work. I couldn’t just… You know how it is._ ”

“ _Yeah,_ ” she responds. She knows how it is. Keeping a job is hard enough without making exceptions for crazy girlfriends trekking across the Atlantic. Rey sighs.

“Is Poe in Dublin?” She asks. Maybe she could stay with Poe until Finn got back.

“ _No,_ ” Finn says, dashing her dreams immediately. “ _He got flown over here, too_.”

Rey bites her lip. She came here to propose and she’d have to wait.

She could ask him.

She could ask him over the phone to marry her.

Rey looks ahead into the greenery and listens to Finn worry over the phone about not being there. He has good intentions. It’s not his fault that she had concocted some crazy-ass plan about going to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend. None of this is his fault. It is hers.

She should tell him.

She should tell him she got sick and isn’t even in Dublin by now.

She focuses on a particularly bright green branch with a small bird whose species she can’t name perched on it as it sings to itself, uncaring of her problems.

“ _Are you okay, Peanut?_ ” Finn asks, tone tinged with worry.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I’ll see you when you get back, yeah?”

…

Silence.

The pause stretches until Rey has to pull her eyes away from the bird. “Finn?”

Finn lets out a strangled sigh.

“ _About that…_ ” he says, and Rey braces herself. Those are not good words, either. “ _I was hoping we could facetime about it or something but… Our assignment’s a month, Rey. They basically switched locations on us. And, you know…_ ”

Rey nearly chokes. _A month?_

A whole month.

She came here to propose and would have to wait a whole month? But how? It’s not like she could stay at that hotel forever.

This could not be happening.

Finn breaks through her panic with a well timed pet name.

“ _Peanut?_ ” Finn asks, and Rey holds her breath. She can almost see him fidgeting, shuffling his weight as he waits for her to finally unleash on him.

She closes her eyes and tries to concentrate, then lets out a long, drawn out sigh.

“Yeah,” she says bitterly. “It’s work. I know how it is.”

Another heavy pause. Rey hates heavy pauses.

“ _Yeah…_ ” Finn repeats, “ _what do you want to do now? Are you okay?_ ” 

Rey shrugs, though Finn can’t see it. She stares back out towards the branch but the bird’s already gone, so she messes with the red thread again.

What _could_ she do? This whole situation doesn’t give her a whole lot of options. She chews on her lip.

She’d figure it out. Rey had been nothing throughout her whole life if not resourceful. She could figure this one out without always depending on Finn.

“I’m fine,” she lies, “Maybe I’ll sightsee first, then go back home. It’s not often I go on trips abroad.”

There’s another strangled sound from Finn’s end. He knows. She’d never been out of the country. Or, at least, never since her mother’s arrival to the States from England with a very young Rey in tow, looking for fame and fortune, or even just a new start. He knows.

“ _I’m sorry, Peanut…_ ” he murmurs, and it’s so pained that a small part of Rey can’t help but ease up on her frustration and anger. None of this is his fault.

“Don’t worry about it,” she lies again, “I’ll figure it out.”

How was she going to get to portugal if the wait was more than a few days? She’d have to return home. The thought of returning home curdles her insides, a sickly image of Plutt surfacing to her mind.

She hangs up before Finn can even say goodbye, then sits back on the wrought-iron bench — the one where Ren had cradled her so lovingly two days prior — and stares out into the nothingness. Maybe she could still tag along with Ren to Dublin, then… something.

Ren must have a psychic sixth sense. Just as she’s thinking about him, he walks out the house and comes around the corner with two mugs in hand. He hands her one, a steaming mug of coffee exactly how she likes it — he must have remembered — then tilts his head. He remains standing. There’s only room for one on the bench. She takes a sip of the drink and sighs, the sandpapery texture of her throat easing up a little.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, not quite meeting Kylo’s eyes. She’d basically yelled at him, and none of this was his fault, either. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“I can still take you to Dublin,” he says from overhead, glossing over her apology. Rey shrinks in on herself. “I’m sure I can get one of the neighbors to keep an eye on Penny and Martin’s house until they’re back.”

Rey stares at her mug in one hand, her phone on the other, and remains silent, but she can only keep silent for so long as frustration bubbles up again.

“He’s gone for a month. I can’t stay in Dublin that long.”

Kylo hums, and Rey watches the steam rise from her mug.

A whole month.

She could delay a couple of days… but not a month. Rey thinks back to her one maxed out credit card and the only dangerously close to maxing out. The few hundred dollars in her bank account, and the gift card from the airline that Kylo had given her. Even adding it all up, it wouldn’t be enough to carry her through a month. It’s not even enough to buy another airplane ticket.

“He paid for your hotel room for a few days though, didn’t he?” Kylo provides, probably trying to be helpful, though it does little to comfort her. Rey nods.

She could maybe find a job. Something under the table that would allow her to just pay for room and board somewhere until she could reunite with Finn.

“I could take you there,” Kylo offers.

Or… she could go home.

Rey cringes. Kylo speaks again, perhaps having misread her flinch, or perhaps uncomfortable with her silence after nothing but noise from her for days on end now.

“Then again, we could just stay here until Penny and Martin return. A whole house with a garden is better than an empty hotel room.”

Rey finally looks up at him, and his eyes spark golden brown. She almost forgets why she’d looked up, before she shakes herself out of it.

“I guess so,” she offers, trying to smile. “At least you’re here. Knowing one insufferable asshole is better than knowing no one.”

Kylo smirks. He must be learning how to read her, that he’s taken no offense to it. Then he snorts to himself and looks away, towards the tree line, and the morning light casts him in such perfect contrast she could follow the lines of his cheekbones as if she were running a finger on a marble statue.

“Helpless duckling. You would have probably been dead by now without me,” he teases, but she knows he doesn’t mean it. When he looks back at her, the smile disappears. “A couple of days, then? I already paid for our stay.”

Rey looks back at her mug, forgetting to berate him for once again throwing money at things that immediately concerned her, too busy worrying. She takes a few gulps of her coffee, praying for the caffeine to ease away the headache, ignoring the burn on her bruised tongue. Staying in Dublin on her own does not sound appealing whatsoever. Neither does returning to Plutt without Finn, unless absolutely necessary.

That alone decides her.

She could delay.

“A couple of days,” she agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO MY BRAIN IS TIRED OF STARING AT THIS CHAPTER BUT HELLO! Finally, we're back! It only took eons. Hello to all the new readers who have found this story! You guys are amazing.  
> p.s: if someone finds a typo, please point it out to me lol my brain really is too tired. I feel like I'm glossing over things. 
> 
> Also, Rey, what the heck. Running around in your underwear. This girl doesn't think very straight when she panics or is mad, does she?
> 
> And... ehehe... did you guys really think this would end in a handful of days when they got to Dublin? nope. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed your chapter! don't forget to drop a coin in the comment box.


	16. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When stuck in a house with nothing to do, Kylo and Rey find a way to entertain themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra Thank You to those of you who take the time to read and comment, because I'm one of those people whose writerly fuel tank runs on interaction with my readers. Remember to fuel up your local writer person, friends.

Kylo follows Rey into the kitchen, watching her as she goes to the sink to wash and rinse out her mug. They’d stood around outside, delighting in the rare morning light, until her coffee was gone and his tea had turned cold. She turns around and walks towards him, quietly taking the mug from his hands, her fingertips barely brushing his, and repeats the washing and rinsing process. Kylo bites the inside of his cheek.

He hadn’t been able to help but to listen in on the conversation outside — or at least, her side of the conversation — as he’d walked out and waited just around the corner, two mugs in hand. Up until that point, he’d been used to snark, to teasing, and even, to an extent, laughter in her voice. The sound of her dejection had twisted in his chest. Rey finally puts away the mugs and turns to look at him.

He can tell she’s trying for chipper, but the way her lids droop slightly, her shoulders sag, the way she leans back into the counter, knuckles white on the edge… well, that’s a poor imitation of chipper. He bites his lip harder.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, because it’s easier to talk about food than it is to talk about her recent bout of disappointments. As if just _waiting_ to be addressed, her stomach grumbles. It drags a small smile from him. Kylo drags out a chair from the small table in the kitchen and motions her to sit, and Rey obeys, surprisingly. She doesn’t hum this time.

He turns around and starts looking for ingredients. He doesn’t know her, but she seems to love food, and, well… a small breakfast plate in exchange for cheering her up is a small price to pay. Barely anything, really. They’d be stuck here together for a handful of days after all.

“What would you like?” he asks over his shoulder, looking at her out of the corner of his eye and catching her mid-shrug. So he provides the most american thing he can think of. “Eggs and hashbrowns?”

Rey smiles.

Eggs and hashbrowns it is. He grabs some potatoes from a bowl and a shredder. The Irish did not keep the frozen kind around, apparently, or at least, Penny and Martin didn’t. He sighs to himself, listening to the _shrr-shrr-shrr_ of potato going through the little square shredder as his muscles work hard to push it through.

 _What are you doing?_ He asks himself, not for the last time.

He’d been asking himself that question since two days prior, but it had only intensified since the previous night, with Rey trying to cuddle herself up to his neck and—

He clears his throat roughly, refusing to dwell on or even acknowledge how he’d been forced to take himself in hand in the shower to calm the raging erection the feverish girl had left him with — it had been shameful, really, and he should know better, and he’d rather forget it ever happened. He chooses instead to listen to the sound of nails drumming on a tabletop.

“So,” Rey starts, trying to strike up conversation. Her voice forces him to stand straighter, a marionette suddenly being yanked to life. He looks over his shoulder, his mindless task of shredding potatoes now interrupted.

“So,” he repeats, for lack of anything better to say. The way her nose tilts up towards the sun where a lone little ray of light beams through makes him think of the multiple times he’d kissed it, and he turns back to his potatoes, trying to calm his heart.

This girl is _absolutely_ out of reach, and there are a billion and one reasons why he _needs_ to stop noticing these things: her boyfriend being prime example number one.

 _Snap out of it, you idiot_.

She may have purred into his ear in the middle of the night, and set his skin aflame in a way not even Katherine had, but that did not mean he had any right to stare at or think about Rey in any way other than as one somewhat-stranger to another. They had only known each other for a week, at best, for pete’s sake.

He swallows.

Rey looks around for something to say. “You’re a good cook, then?” she asks. Kylo snorts.

“I am. Why? Is it hard to believe?” he asks, finally setting aside his shredding and turning to look at her with an arched brow. He was proud of very few things in life about himself, but his cooking skills ranked pretty high on that small list of accomplishments. He would _fight_ anyone who thought his cooking was bad.

Rey grins, obviously having picked up on his defensiveness, then wrinkles her nose. He swallows.

“I don’t know, you don’t seem like the type,” she says, flicking a small bit of non-existent crumb off the table. He snorts again.

 _Stop noticing her button nose already!_ He shouts to himself even as he pastes on aminute smirk.

“And who are you to judge? You, murderer of vegetables, telling _me_ I don’t seem like the type.” He says, swinging his arm with all the melodrama in the world. It earns him a small giggle.

Good.

“I only have one dish to go by,” she says, sticking out her lower lip in what she must think is a show of petulance. Kylo’s smirk grows. Anything to keep her mind occupied and away from the bad news she’d received. She’d already been through plenty in a matter of… what? Six days?

It could hardly seem that way, but yeah. Six days. Less than a week.

“If you hadn’t been feverish out of your mind, you would have maybe remembered my delicious chicken noodle soup. That only comes out on very special occasions,” he teases, pointing the shredding square at her accusingly.

Rey’s cheeks turn beet red.

Oh.

Stupid man. Why bring _that_ up? He turns red as he remembers what that fever had led to: Kylo, fist wrapped around his cock as he angrily jerked himself to the beating drum of the shower’s water raining on him, the cold stream having failed to cool him down no matter how long he’d stood underneath it. Kylo grunts.

“I mean—“ he starts, but Rey cuts him off.

“About that,” she murmurs, looking away from him. “I— well, thank you. For, you know… taking care of me, and all. All jokes aside, I probably would have very much ended up dead somewhere had it not been for you up to this point.”

Rey looks at her red shirt, the one she’s been wearing for two days, and fidgets with a loose thread. Kylo nibbles on the corner of his bottom lip, rubbing his thumb over the nail of his pinky finger before stretching his hands and relaxing them, all lecherous thoughts forgotten.

“I hope you know I meant it in jest,” he says, his adam’s apple adjusting as Rey shifts in her seat. A small smile graces her face but she still avoids looking up.

“Yes, but it’s nonetheless still true.”

Kylo clears his throat and turns back to his shredding. The rest of breakfast is a quiet affair, Kylo placing a plateful of food in front of Rey and watching her devour it despite her constant sniffling. She’s still sick, so when she empties out her glass of orange juice, he quietly tops it again. She only half notices.

“So, now what?” he asks, and Rey looks around the room, sniffling. She grabs their dishes and busies herself cleaning them, giving Kylo a perfect view of her exposed back, hair over one shoulder while she considers what to do next. He’s asking about more than just their stay here, but Rey seems resolute to ignore the subject as she stacks the clean plates and cups in the other sink to dry.

“Well…” she begins, then looks down at her clothes once she’s done and at him sheepishly. “Uh, actually… I don’t know about you but I need a shower ASAP.”

Kylo hums. He does, too. He motions for her to go first, deciding to wait out in the kitchen, but soon enough he hears her coming down the stairs again. Kylo looks around the corner to see her disappear down a hall, towards the room with the clawfoot tub. He shakes his head, then makes his way upstairs to shower.

The spray of water running down his muscles reminds him of what he’d done the night before and Kylo is quick to finish showering with record speed. By the time he’s done getting ready for the day it’s started raining. Of course it’d rain. When did it _ever_ stop raining in this place?

He finds her by the big window, staring out into the rain.

“Are you alright?” he asks, and is pleasantly surprised to see that Rey doesn’t jump. She’s grown comfortable to his voice. Rey only turns her head around, semi-damp curls framing her ears and gives him a small, tired smile.

“Fine,” she says, before turning back to the window. “Just… thinking. There’s nothing else to do around here but think,” she continues sardonically, and Kylo snorts.

_Isn’t that the truth, sister._

“We could—” he looks around, then realizes Penny and Martin have no TV. No wonder the couple had been so invested in Kylo and Rey. A whole, brand new source of entertainment had barged into their home and they had been eager to instigate it. Another snort. “Nevermind, you’re right. There’s nothing to do here.”

Rey chuckles at his side then walks away from the window and sits on a small, plush chair. Kylo shoves his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall. They stare at each other for an uncomfortably long amount of time, since there’s also nothing else to look at. When he starts feeling a creep of heat going up his collarbone as his eyes land on her lips, however, Kylo clears his throat.

“So…” he says.

“So…”

“Now what?”

“Let’s play a game.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow. _A game?_

 _“_ Haven’t you had enough of games for a lifetime?” he asks, blinking lazily at her. Rey smiles.

“What, would you prefer we sit here and stare at each other all day?”

Part of him, a _very_ quiet part that is treacherous and unwelcome, whispers its assent. Kylo shakes his head, both at her and at the little voice.

“What game?” he asks, and Rey looks around the room again.

Her eyes land on the bottles of alcohol on the rack and Kylo’s eyebrows fly up, up, up.

“Let’s play truth or dare. The way it’s _supposed_ to be played,” she says, then smirks. “Though I say we also take shots.”

Kylo narrows his eyes at her and she grins.

“What?” she asks, feigning a haughty air that only makes her look like a child trying to play at being a grown up. “There’s nothing else to do.”

So they play Truth or Dare the way it’s meant to be played, taking shots of brandy in between.

The truths and the dares are mostly silly things. What your most embarassing moment in elementary school was, or, run up and down the stairs five times. They end up drinking half a bottle this way, until even Kylo’s starting to feel a little buzzed. He looks at the clock. It’s the middle of the day.

Rey’s head is propped down on the table where she'd collapsed into a tired fit of giggles over the latest admission from him — having once worn his mother’s super high heels and put on lipstick as a toddler, then having paraded around the house with a towel worn as a cape, a bucket under his arm, screaming he was Darth Vader. Kylo shakes his head.

“Come on,” he says, taking the bottle away and getting up slowly to return it to its rightful place. “Before you turn into a weepy drunk on me.”

Rey snorts, head still down. They’d exhausted themselves running up and down the stairs, trying to juggle random household objects, and drinking plenty in between every time one of them took a shot.

“I make a hilarious drunk, thank you very much,” she slurs a little, and Kylo smiles.

Doesn’t he know it.

“Fine, hilarious drunk,” he replies before plopping himself back down on the chair. “I think we’ve had enough of truth or dare.”

He’d found himself taking care of this girl. Day in and day out for a week now, his life had revolved around the hurricane of unfortunate events that was hers, and somehow he’d allowed himself to be swept along. He should stop, he thinks, but when she looks up at him through impossibly beautiful lashes, it’s hard to remember the reasons as to why he should.

Rey shakes her head. “Not even close. Truth or dare.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow, then rolls his eyes. Still, he indulges her. That, too, he finds himself doing at every chance he gets for absolutely no reason he can imagine.

“Fine, truth. Even though I am pretty sure it was supposed to be my turn to ask.”

Rey ignores him, something she’s so adept at doing, then points at him.

“Why exactly are you in Ireland? You said business, but it’s been a week. Wouldn’t business — or, really, your uncle — be calling you at all hours of the day to show up by now? Are you lying? Are you really running from the law? Are you a convict with a dark and mysterious past and have I spent the last week walking next to a murderer?”

Kylo stares, then a laugh worms up his throat and booms around the living room. Oh, she’s drunk alright, and she _is_ right. She’s a hilarious drunk.

“None of the above, though you wound me, thinking that I could be a murderer,” Kylo teases as he shakes his head, leaning back into his chair with a sigh. “And I really am here on business. There’s just nobody waiting for me to get there, really. I could take all the time in the world and nobody would notice nor care.”

That was more he’d shared with _anyone_ about his plans. Rey hums.

“That’s sad,” a drunken Rey murmurs. He looks at her then, and her eyes are suddenly just a little duller. Kylo hums.

“What about you? Truth or Dare, and you only get to pick truth.”

Rey lifts up her head and arches an eyebrow at him.

“That’s not how this game is played,” she retorts and he smirks.

“It is when you accuse me of being a murderder.” Kylo smarms, giving her a mischevious glance. The girl before him is not one to back out from a challenge, however, so she calls out _Truth_ with her nose held up in the air. He smiles.

“Alright, I told you why I’m here. Now you, why are _you_ really here?” He asks, and Rey blinks, so he quickly adds. “I admit even _I_ would have long ago taken a flight right back to the States if I had to put up with as much as you’ve had. Are you pregnant and trying to break the happy news? There’s Skype for that, you know?”

He’s teasing — _she’d_ called _him_ an escaped convict, after all — but Rey’s cheeks redden.

_Shit._

Kylo shuts up immediately, clamping his teeth down. Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

He opens his mouth to apologize, to say he overstepped and he’s sorry, when Rey lets out a breathy grunt.

“No, I’m not pregnant,” she says, carefully avoiding his eyes. Their beautiful golden hazel green color seems to fade a little at that. “I came to propose, actually.”

 _That_ takes him by surprise. Kylo’s not one to be taken by surprise very often, but this girl keeps setting the record for new things in his life. Yet he also finds it _so_ ridiculous that she’s put up with all of this just to _propose_ that the words spill out of him before he can stop them with a laugh.

“You mean you’ve trekked all the way to Ireland and put up with all this bullshit just to put a ring on it?” He asks, incredulous. “Isn’t that _his_ job? Couldn’t it have waited until he got back home?”

“No,” she replies curtly. Kylo chews on his lip, but she continues. “No, it couldn’t wait. I want to start a family, and…”

She hesitates, and it gets the best of his curiosity. This is the most she’s ever said about herself and her life.

“And what?” he asks, tilting his head. What well of determination is she dipping into that she would go to _these lengths_ for a man, even if he is Prince Charming? He asks as much.

That had been his mistake.

“What?” Rey asks, her tone turning icy. “Is it so inconceivable that somebody could want to spend the rest of their lives with somebody they love, and love them enough to make an honest effort to try and make it a reality?”

 _Yes_ , his brain provides. Images of Hux, of Katherine, of Snoke and Sons, of his parents, of his _stupid life_ and every relationship that had ended in heartbreak flash across his mind.

He knows his experiences are coloring his vision when he speaks next.

“A proposal is hardly worth all this.”

Oh.

Oh he should have kept his mouth shut.

“And who died and made _you_ the voice of reason on this planet? You barely seem like you’ve seen the right side of a loving relationship _once_ in your life, so forgive me when I say, you don’t get to judge me for my choices! You dont _know_ me!” she barks.

Kylo tenses, his muscles wiring up, ready to spring; his jaw aches as he clenches on it to keep from saying something he might regret, and _oh_ how he wants to say something he would definitely regret. Then…

Rey’s eyes widen slightly as she realizes what she’d said about somebody _she_ doesn’t know. She takes in a deep breath and he can _sense_ her wanting to hunch in on herself, but if he’s come to know anything about her, is that the girl would always act exactly the opposite of how she should. She squares her shoulders.

“And I don’t know you,” she continues. “So how about we just… don’t do this?”

The silence stretches for a heartbeat.

_Fine. He could do that just fine._

Kylo stands up.

No, he’s not going to engage. No, he’s not going to look at her stupidly beautiful eyes and wide pout, and he would _not_ say something to this perfect stranger about _his_ feelings. That doesn’t stop him from glaring at her with absolute ice. He watches her shiver, and fucking _good_. How dare she?

They had been doing so well.

He turns around to leave, resolute in keeping his mouth shut, when — of course —she speaks.

“Kylo,” she calls with a tired sigh.

Placating. Perhaps realizing _she_ had also overstepped. Yet it’s the sound of her voice that finally snaps him.

He swivels around and stalks back, footsteps stomping on the wooden floor ashe reaches her and grabs her by the shoulders. He pulls her up and out of the chair until she’s at full height, staring up at him. His head dips until they’re inches apart, determined to make a point, to make her _see him_ as he does. Her breath is ragged on his cheek and his hot on hers. The heat and the smell of brandy mingles between them and were he a crazed man he’d dip down and devour her, but he’s a different kind of crazed now.

“No,” he says. “You said it right, sunshine. I _don’t_ know you. But you don’t know me either, so how about we keep it that way? A handful of days and you can go right back to chasing after your knight in shining armor, the one who can’t seem to bother trying to maybe — oh, I don’t know — take a single day off work to come see his girlfriend. The girlfriend who’s been chasing him halfway across the world? You know, that one.”

Rey’s eyes widen, then narrow, because who is she if not somebody ready for a fight. He’d already run into this with her before. It comes as no surprise. Kylo’s eyes narrow to slits. He’s gone too far, _way too far,_ but her words about never having been invested in a loving relationship — about never having been loved — had been so cutting. They _cut_ him and he’s been bleeding for a little too long. She opens her mouth to talk, but he cuts her off. His breath rustles the baby hairs at her ears and he growls.

“Then you can get one one knee, and propose, and go back to your perfect little life. Yes, we can stay strangers just fine. Then maybe one day you’ll tell your hazel eyed babies about the _asshole_ you met in Ireland — the one who’s never been in a _loving relationship_ — who nursed you to health while your boyfriend never made so much as an effort to find you other than leaving you a handful of messages. Can we do that, Rey?” He seethes, but Rey’s turning redder by degrees and _oh_ she’s beautiful when she’s angry. He’s not much better off, though. He continues. “Yes, yes I think we can.”

He drops her shoulders then and stalks off, ignoring the small amount of tears rimming her lashes even as an unconscious part of his brain sends signals to his heart to ache and twist at the sight.

Kylo stomps outside into the drizzling rain in a fury and towards the backyard because his other options are rather limited, kicking the _stupid white iron bench_ until it tips over on its side, sending up a sad splash of rain. Thank God for steel toed boots.

The next fifteen minutes are spent walking back and forth muttering about silly little girls who think that they can just _up and chase_ love and it’ll just drop into their laps if they work at it hard enough and get on one knee.

He’s sure he’s made the biggest mistake of his life, and that probably made him the biggest fool in the world. He’d promised he’d see her to Dublin, and now he’d just gotten in her face when it hadn’t been his place to do so, but _GOD! The_ _woman is infuriating!_

Kylo kicks the bench a second time for good measure before taking in a deep breath and righting it. Thankfully there’s no damage on Penny and Martin’s property.

He should go in there and apologize.

He really should.

He had let his own experiences color the whole situation and it wasn’t _her_ fault. He should go apologize.

When he walks inside she’s nowhere to be seen. He sighs, shaking out the water from his clothes and running his hands through already messy, damp hair. He shouldn’t have gotten in her face either. What was he thinking? Hadn’t he learned his lesson? But it had been so easy to close in when just the previous night she’d been nuzzled into his neck, and the reminder burns inside his chest.

No. She’s _proposing_ to her boyfriend. God knew he should not even _think_ of her.

He stalks upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time, but finds the bedroom door shut. There’s a note taped on it, written in hurried, bubble-like print. Kylo would roll his eyes if not for the situation.

 _“The asshole can go sleep elsewhere.”_ He murmurs under a whisper as he reads it.

Had she really thought he’d be sharing the room with her to begin with? That twists his stomach again and he drops his head back, taking a deep breath on the inhale.

“Rey,” he calls out.

Nothing.

He sighs.

“Rey,” he repeats. He rasps his knuckles on the door. “Are you in there?”

Nothing.

Except the light is on and he _knows_ she’s there.

“Rey,” he repeats once more, dropping his hand from the door. “I’m sorry.”

Nothing.

Kylo shakes his head. His things are all in that bedroom, and he’s _damp_. He walks over to the room next door, shedding his clothes all the way down to his boxers, and plops down on the bed. Thankfully he’d at least left the sheets on the previous night when he’d collected all the comforters. Kylo pulls out his phone from his discarded jeans’ pocket and looks at the time.

Early evening.

He doesn’t feel like cooking. He doesn’t feel like eating, or going to go find another book for him to stare at without reading. He feels like closing his eyes and letting death take him for his stupidity.

So he does. For hours, and hours.

Soon enough he’s snoozing, trying to ignore the shiver running up and down his naked spine. He concentrates harder on falling asleep and manages _just so_ when he hears a door creaking open. His ears prick up.

There are tiny steps. Cautious steps on creaking wood. Kylo’s brows go up but he refuses to open his eyes, listening as yet another door opens. His door.

He stays still. As still as he can despite the shivering twitchy mess his muscles have become only to feel a soft weight on him.

A comforter. A set of them

Kylo finally cracks an eye open and looks at the bearer of the comforters. Rey’s standing at the edge of the bed, shifting her weight uncomfortably while trying to avoid looking at him. She thinks he’s asleep, so he closes his eyes and waits. Then the soft fabric over his body moves. She’s tucking him in.

He bites back the tiny smile threatening to curl up his lips as Rey lets out a huffy breath, murmuring about irritating men. She may be mad at him, but for once she’s the one looking out for _him_. He feels all his irritation leaking away.

She hesitates a little longer once done and Kylo has to put a lot of energy into keeping his eyes shut. Still… He needs to apologize. When she finally moves to walk away, he lets his arm come out from under where she’d securely tucked him in and he grabs her wrist. Rey swivels. She hadn’t expected him to be awake.

“Hey,” he murmurs, dropping her wrist immediately. He shouldn’t be touching her. Instead Kylo sits up and plants his elbows on his bent knees, and Rey carefully avoids looking at his face, or his chest, or anywhere, really. He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Rey moves to walk out again and so he does what he _shouldn’t_ do with a girl whose hazel eyes had started haunting him in a matter of days. He grabs her hand and tugs her back.

Rey doesn’t fight him.

“I really am sorry,” he reiterates. Rey bites on her lower lip. “I shouldn’t have.”

Rey shakes her head, but she says nothing, and Kylo can see the shine of tears against the moonlight. His gut twists, his heart aches, and his muscles tense in a painful way, tingling to his fingertips.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs, reaching forward and pulling her down until she sits on the bed at his legs. “I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

His thumb moves up to brush away the tears, and he feels exactly like the asshole she had called him. Kylo Ren doesn’t know how to deal with crying women. Well, he does… just not _this_ specific woman.

“Shhhhhh,” he urges, brushing them away as soon as they start falling. Rey lets out a little hiccup. “I was a complete jerk, and I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

Rey hiccups again then sniffs. Strong little trooper. She dries her eyes quickly and gives him what she might have thought would pass for a smile.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, then looks at the blanket she’d wrapped around him. “I figured you’d be cold.”

Kylo smiles lightly.

“I guess we’re even now. You took care of me. That’s very kind of you.”

Rey snorts, “A single blanket doesn’t add up to what you’ve done for me.”

Kylo bites his lip and he dares run his thumb over her cheek once again to wipe away a leftover tear track.

“I just—“ she says, then changes course. “I’m sorry about what I said. It was uncalled for.”

As if what he’d said hadn’t been _entirely_ fucking uncalled for. He sighs, running his fingers through his hair.

“Forget about it. We’re fine.”

Rey gives him a skeptical look and he can’t help but notice her lashes clumped together from the tears, eyes impossibly bright. The way moonlight bathes her in the darkness of the room. The creamy texture of her skin reflecting light. He should _not_ be noticing. He pulls his eyes away.

Then…

Then Rey does something he would have never thought would ever happen. She asks him for something.

“I… Kylo? I—“ she begins, then grunts at herself and stares at her hands. “Look, I know we barely know each other. I was a massive bitch, _again_ , but… Could I—“

She hesitates, looking out the door. Kylo frowns. Despite himself, he tilts her chin until she looks at him.

What alternative reality is he living in that this is even remotely _happening_? This girl wants to be engaged to another man. He’s only known her for a week. They had _just_ finished screaming at each other that very same afternoon. Still, the way her voice dips and wavers forces him to make her look.

“Could you… what?” he asks.

Rey bites down on her lower lip hard before forcing her eyes on him.

“You don’t owe me anything. I just… Could I stay here? I don’t… sleep well in empty rooms. I haven’t for a very long time, and… well…”

 _That’s_ _what she_ wants _from me?_

Kylo swallows. He licks his lips, thinking back to all the times they’d spent together. She hadn’t slept by herself once. This is an unfamiliar house. There could be a billion reasons why.

Oh, God, but this is so far past the line of reasonable. He should say no. She wants another man and he’s started to notice small things about her and by _God_ what she’d done to him the previous night… But her shoulders deflate the longer he stays silent and she looks down at her hands nervously again, so he, stupid man that he is, does exactly what he shouldn’t.

He pulls the sheet back and scoots over, inviting her in.

“Come on,” he says.

Rey scoots in nervously and rests her head down on the pillow that _used_ to be his as he lowers himself down on the other side. She tucks in her limbs and he tucks in his so nothing’s touching, and they lie there, staring at each other for way too long. Still, Rey gives him a tiny smile. A small white flag waved.

“Good night,” she says.

Kylo watches her a moment longer after she closes her eyes, hair cascading over her neck and spilling onto the pillow, and she’s so _bright_ it almost hurts to look at her.

“Good night,” he repeats. He closes his eyes.

He can make it through the night.

He can.

He can.

This becomes his new mantra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that got slightly not PG rated rather quickly. What should I tag it as now? Thanks all for reading and for your patience while you waited! Sheesh, these kids.
> 
> Now onto other news. We have art! Here's the lovely stuff we've been gifted with: 
> 
> [The Rain Scene](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/150179072185/billysmind-you-can-be-an-asshole-all-you) and [Garden Scene](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/150838323305/billysmind-that-thought-gets-interrupted-by) by the lovely Billysmind!
> 
> Thank you so very much. And I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	17. Tylenol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey has an argument with an awake-but-fevered Kylo who thinks he’s having the longest dream of his life. Things can only go downhill from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, thank you a bazillion times for the super warm welcome to the last chapter. I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I hope you like this one as well, and thanks for watering your author-plant in the comment section as always <3 
> 
> **WARNING** : This chapter covers mentions of Rey's past abuse (Plutt being disgusting to a minor, really) that may be triggering to some. Please proceed carefully.

When she finally hears his breath even out, feels it gently ghosting over her cheeks as it pushes out of a too-big frame in hot, long exhales, Rey opens her eyes. He’s dipped in darkness, the only light source the moon behind his head as it lights up his impossibly shiny hair in an icy halo. Rey blinks, breathing shallow air to keep from disturbing him while her vision adjusts. One by one, his features become discernible. His strong cheekbones, long nose, oddly angular chin. His impossibly long, thick lashes and his wide pout parted lightly as his body works on bringing in air.

Rey bites her lower lip, the words he’d practically shouted at her that afternoon playing on loop in her mind, a barrage of doubts crashing into her as she examines the tiny moles that dust his face.

It had taken all of her composure not to start crying right in front of him. His accusations had hit _too_ close to home, and yet… from where he stood, all of it had been true, right?

Rey, traipsing across the world in pursuit of her happily ever after while not being given the time of the day by her boyfriend. Sure, there are things he doesn’t know: the fact that Rey and Finn’s lives had never been perfect, the fact that Finn could _not_ compromise his job because of her recklessness, the fact that Rey had been losing her nerve the longer this nightmare of a trip went on. Still…

Rey lets out a soft sigh, watching Kylo Ren’s sleeping face. He looks so young with his guard down. Peaceful. Boyish.

“You just had to go and say those things, didn’t you?” she murmurs to herself, both about _her_ accusations and his.

Then something happens she did not expect. Kylo’s lashes flutter and his eyes open, and Rey holds her breath, waiting for them to close again. She hadn’t intended in waking him up.

They don’t. Instead they open to half-mast. She should close her eyes _right this moment_ and pretend to sleep. Getting caught staring would be embarrassing at best, absolutely creepy at worst. Her eyes can’t seem to pull away from his as he gives lazy, drunken half-blinks, though. She breathes in quietly and waits for his eyes to unfocus and close.

Instead Kylo lets out a soft puff of breath, a half sigh as he blinks again, his words slow, a deep rumble.

“Decided to haunt me here, too, then?” he murmurs as his eyes survey hers, fall down to her nose, her lips, then back up. “That hardly seems fair.”

Rey’s eyes widen, her heart stuttering in her chest. Is he… is he awake?

Her immediate desire is to bolt out of bed and run at this _stranger_ telling her she’s been haunting him, but she finds herself rooted to her spot, fingers digging into her pillow. Kylo blinks lazily once more and his eyes close a fraction, another puff of hot air hitting her cheeks. His eyes fall closed again and Rey finally breathes.

No. Perhaps he’s just sleep talking. Dreaming of somebody else. People had a habit of talking in their sleep sometimes. But the way he’d inspected her face… Rey chews on her lower lip, curiosity getting the best of her.

“Who haunts you?” she murmurs, trying to make her voice a soft whisper so as to not disturb him. His lashes flutter again and he sighs.

“And now you’re talking,” he says, and a sleepy chuckle escapes him. Rey blinks rapidly, but his eyes remain shut. “With that bell… like… voice.”

He seems to be floating back to sleep, but Rey _can’t_ stop. It’s a twisted thing, her curiosity. But he’s asleep, and she barely knows _anything_ about this man. She can’t help it.

“A bell?” she whispers, watching as his face scrunches. Then he laughs.

“Yes, a bell, even here in my dreams…” he says, and suddenly Rey realizes what’s happening. He’s stuck between wakefulness and sleep and he thinks he’s dreaming.

“Your bell-like voice… and hazel eyes…” Kylo sighs. She tenses, but _oh_ , he’s talking. “And your pouty mouth every time you talk of him…”

Rey frowns.

This is _so_ beyond what this man should be saying to her, but the longer he keeps talking the more curious she gets. He had _thought_ of her eyes? Enough to notice, at least. Kylo rolls his cheek on his pillow, perhaps trying to make himself comfortable, but it only pushes stray locks of hair onto his eyes. Rey licks her lips, torn between wanting to run and wanting to watch him, wanting to hear what he has to say in the quiet of his dreams when his walls are down and he’s not angry at her. Would his words change? Or would he still accuse Finn of neglecting her? Would he think her an entitled princess? Rey gently, carefully lifts her fingers and brushes his hair aside, wanting to see his eyes if they open again.

Kylo groans, though. Her fingers had come too close, had touched him too intimately. She tries to withdraw but his hand comes up to cover hers, until it's caged between his fingers and his cheek, and only _then_ does Rey’s brain catch up. He’s _burning_.

And _of course_ he’d be burning. He’d stalked outside and stomped around in the rain for twenty minutes after their fight. Rey had gotten glimpses of him out the window, watching him stalk back and forth in a line muttering to himself. She purses her lips and forces herself to relax. This is all feverish talk. Feverish talk and he thinks he’s asleep. It would mean nothing in the morning.

“You deserve better,” he mutters.

Rey nearly swallows her tongue at the words. “What?” she murmurs again, trying and failing to pull her hand away. He has a surprisingly strong grasp even while sleeping.

“You deserve better,” he repeats, his eyes _finally_ opening. They’re glassy, as if looking far away.

Rey worries at her lower lip, guilt pooling in her stomach that she’s allowing even this much. Guilt that when Kylo says those words a small, treacherous part of her heart agrees. Guilt that it’s this man she’s touching instead of Finn.

Rey looks away from his eyes, focusing out the window instead, staring at the bright white moon as she lets out a pained sigh.

“What would you know about what I deserve,” she says the words in a whisper, like smoke in the air. “You barely know me.”

Rey tugs her hand away and he follows it. Before she knows it Kylo has scooted over, and her brain rings in alarm when he lifts himself up and cages her underneath him. He’s barely holding himself up, really, but his knees are pinning her legs in place and he’s pulled himself up, resting on his elbows. She can’t look anywhere but up at him as his raven locks cascade around his head. His eyes are still only _barely_ open, but he’s looking at her with an intensity she’s not sure any man who is feverish and sleep talking should possess.

“I know enough,” he mutters, breath turning hotter as it disturbs the small hairs on her temple. His head starts drooping the same way his lids are and Rey’s eyes widen, trying to shift under him, though a perverse side of her _still_ begs to hear what he has to say.

“Do you now?” she asks, their conversations taking place in nothing but whispers and murmurs. Rey wiggles a hand up, placing it on his chest to keep him from crashing on top of her, which she wouldn’t put past him. She can feel the taut muscle twitching under velvety skin and has to avert her eyes. Kylo lets out a sleepy ' _mmhmmm'_  as his head moves down, his forehead connecting with her collar bone. Rey lets out a sigh of relief. He’s falling asleep again.

He stays there for a moment, and she thinks she’s safe to move him back to his side when his lips start moving. She chokes on a breath of air. Kylo, in the meantime, brushes a gentle kiss against the curve of her neck, letting out a soft murmured ' _hmhmmm'_  again. Her breath hitches.

“I know that you should be kissed,” he whispers, doing the same thing he just said she should receive, as if to demonstrate his point. His lips are so hot a ridiculous part of her brain, the only part that’s now processing stimuli where the rest of her body has frozen, tries to tell her that he could probably burn her. He plants another kiss, the spot only to be caressed by another puff of scorching air escaping his lungs before he moves up slightly.

“I know you should be kissed,” he murmurs again, “and held, and protected.” His lips travel to her exposed shoulder, and this time when the kiss comes accompanied by parted lips a shock of electricity runs through her.

She should _move_.

She should _run_.

She can’t make herself do any of those things, except swallow hard and try not to breathe too sharply. Even if she wanted to run, he’s now entirely sprawled on top of her, weighing far more than any person should, a boulder made of nothing but muscle and bulk.

“Kylo,” she says desperately, the hand now pinned between her chest and his boiling from the absolute _furnace_ that is his body heat. He lets out a soft groan.

“And then you whisper my name,” he murmurs, resting his cheek on her shoulder, his breath coming hard against the side of her jaw. His hair is impossibly soft and it tickles her earlobe, but Rey tries her best not to jerk away and bring him to lucidity. _“_ What a cruel…little thing you are…”

His eyes shut again as he brings in air through his nose and out through his mouth, as if trying to come to terms with her cruelty. Rey stares at the ceiling.

This could _not_ be happening.

“I am not cruel,” she defends, unsure of whether she’s defending herself against a man who’s clearly not even self-aware at the moment or against her own heart as it beats desperately out of her chest.

“Hmmmm,” Kylo mutters against her, and her heart somehow learns how to do the tango in her chest for a moment when his voice comes hot and low against her skin. She couldn’t have ever known what the rumble of his voice in his chest could do to her when it sank into her own. “You _are_ cruel. Your beauty…is cruel… your laugh… is cruel… it’s all cruel…even your—“ he stops, and Rey splits in two between relief that maybe, _maybe_ he’s finally done for good, and frustration at wanting to know the rest. He huffs. “Even your stupidly cute… button nose… is cruel… cruel duckling.”

Oh.

Oh if she had _any_ doubts that he was talking about her before, they’ve been dashed now. He’s talking about her, and Rey groans to herself. She tries to push him away gently, but he refuses, his body too leaden-heavy for her. It reminds her of her futile attempts to get him to move back in the hotel room.

Her movements only make _him_  shift, Kylo’s gigantic arms moving under her to wrap around her waist, jostling _her_ as if she weighed no more than a feather. Rey feels his lashes flutter against her neck and a yelp dies in her throat. He once again kisses her, this time right where her jaw meets her neck, and she holds back a groan. Still, her _stupid_ body reacts. Her eyes nearly roll back into her head and she has to clench her legs at the unbidden tingling pooling at the junction of her thighs.

“If I were him,” Kylo mutters, leaning up again until his nose hovers an inch above hers, eyes _barely_ open and staring at her mouth _, “I’d_ kiss you properly. And never go away…”

He’s burning. She can feel his fever radiating off him and he’s _awake_ but not, and he’s whispering words that by _God_ she had hoped Finn would say even _once_ , and even in his half-gone state this perfect stranger is managing to light up her veins in way that Finn never had.

Finn had always looked at her like she needed to be protected and kissed, but never like this. Never with this intensity. He’d worshipped her as though she were _more_ , yet like a lightning strike, she realizes he had never worshipped her as a _woman_. She clears her throat, trying to push these thoughts away as her eyes travel from one golden brown eye to another, trying to find even a bit of lucidity. When the words stumble out of her, it’s too late.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” Rey murmurs.

Kylo gives a humorless chuckle as he buries his face into her neck. His voice is dark and mouth-watering and Rey _squirms_ because this is just _so very wrong_.

“No…” he sighs, “I’m not. I’m just the asshole…”

The whole exchange has taken less than two or three minutes but Rey’s not sure her heart valves can keep up with the strain of trying to pump blood this fast.

“You’re not an asshole,” she stammers, knowing how stupid it is to try and reassure a man who probably would not remember this in the morning. “You’re just dreaming.”

“Nice dream,” he agrees, sagging back into Rey. “You listen to me in this one… remember… you should be kissed properly. And looked after.”

She can’t help it. She laughs. Why is he fixating on that one thing? It’s gone so far past the line of ridiculous that she can’t help herself. She decides to play along with his crazy talk.

“You mean like how you would?” she asks, her lips hovering by his ear. Kylo groans.

“Yes,” he replies, his head resting on her pillow.

“You’re dreaming,” she sighs tiredly, “and feverish.”

He’s probably delirious and only half asleep, but he’s not lucid enough to realize he’s actually talking. Then she remembers how _he’d_ taken care of her while she had been sick and feverish. She can’t remember any of it except sitting up to drink tea _,_ vestigial memories of Kylo telling her to sit up floating in her mind. So Rey frees a hand and carefully, gingerly runs her fingers through his hair once. It’s the least she can do, to provide the sick man some comfort.

How strange, she muses, that she has no problem touching Ren when all her life she had jumped through hoops to avoid others. How strange, that she’s lying under his weight –– his _near naked_ weight –– and somehow there are no traces of panic or fear. Rey bites her lower lip when he lets out a huff at the fact that her fingers have stopped moving. She resumes the gentle soothing motions.

 _It’s because he’d never try to hurt me_.

Deep inside she knows this. Any other time she would have had a panic attack at being grabbed by the shoulders and hauled up, but she’d only glared at him as he’d seethed into her face, barely registering the touch in her own annoyance with the man. And she hadn’t missed the way he’d avoided touching any other woman, yet he somehow kept seeking her out tenderly. He’d never hurt her. So Rey keeps running her fingers through his hair.

“You’re such a strange man,” she muses, tone dropped to a whisper. Kylo grumbles something against her neck and Rey shakes her head. “He does kiss me, you know? And protect me.”

She should drop it. Arguing doesn’t gain her anything, but every word he says makes her want to defend Finn, even when something itches in the back of her neck that tells her Kylo speaks truth.

“I bet,” Kylo grumbles into her neck, nuzzling it, and Rey has to bite hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from squirming again. “Does it make you… happy…duckling?” he murmurs.

She wonders how he can keep up a dream going so long. Rey can barely remember hers, and the few she has are only ever passing, unless they’re nightmares.

“Does what make me happy?” she asks, fingers now absentmindedly carding through his hair while she stares at the ceiling. Maybe once he finally went completely under Rey could push him back towards his side, close her eyes, and pretend this never happened. Yeah, that would be a good course of action.

For now she pets the feverish man out of a sense of duty to ease his illness in any way she can. It had been her fault, after all, for leaving him all night with no blankets or dry clothes.

“How he kisses you…” Kylo mumbles, and is that a _tiny_ amount of jealousy she hears? Rey shakes her head and lets out a soft ‘ _hmmmm,_ ’ but then really thinks about his question.

“I suppose.” she replies after a long moment.

It’s not like she _didn’t_ enjoy it. But Rey also had nothing else to compare it to, except for one faked-kiss with this very man. Finn’s kisses were loving, soft and gentle, adoring in a way that made her feel warm and happy. Kylo chuckles. It reminds her of a growl. She thinks if the devil had a laugh, it might sound like this. Like a man who knows more than he lets on when he chuckles, like it carries with it all the sin in the galaxy.

“You don’t…” he says, and this time Kylo’s eyes _do_ open. He pushes himself up, and when she inspects them they’re still glassy and gone. She wonders if he’s like her when she’s sick, checking out of reality entirely. Before she can deny his statement, however, he speaks.

“Here…” he mumbles, “Let me teach you.”

Her throat closes immediately and Rey throws up her hands to his bare chest to try and push him away, but Kylo lowers himself until his lips gently rest unmoving atop hers. This time she _does_ squirm, but by now she’s not entirely sure if it’s to dislodge him or to calm the throbbing that's beginning between her legs. Rey lets out a strangled ‘ _Kylo_ ’ and that only _drives him_.

The kiss stops being chaste, and it’s not careful or quiet like the one in the living room at dinner time. No, this is the sort of kiss Rey had only seen in movies. The toe-curling kind. Kylo presses himself into her until she’s been pushed deep into the mattress and urges her to open up with a groan, suckling on her lower lip, licking at her top one, the softness of his mouth bringing about a whole series of physical reactions Rey had _never_ felt from just kissing. He’s an expert at this, and _god_ if this is what it’s like when he’s asleep then what would it be like when he’s awake? Kylo growls into her, finally getting what he wanted, and coaxes her tongue into his mouth so he can suckle it, explores her mouth with his tongue and attempts to devour her as he tugs her closer to him, his breathing and hers hot on each other, and despite her mental alarms _screeching_ …

She closes her eyes.

This sort of kiss is new.

This kiss is all sorts of sinful.

This is not how Finn had _ever_ kissed her, and she’s curious. Her mind whites out when Kylo once again groans into her, the rumble reverberating inside of her, against her chest. It's a throaty drag that demands more from her, his mouth on hers doing what she had previously thought was unimaginable; Rey finally gives in and _whines_ for him to stop because if he keeps doing this she might regret her whole existence. She can barely breathe as he brings her lower lip into his mouth and rolls it between his teeth, her back arching of its own accord when he then soothes the spot, sucking gently, before taking her once again until she’s breathless.

She’s kissing a man that’s not her boyfriend and while her brain shouts one thing her body and heart do another, and _God_ above she needs to get out of this bed. When he finally pulls away from her, lips parted and tongue just as the edge of his teeth as he looks down at her now-bruised mouth, Rey has to force herself to steadiness by counting back from one hundred. Their shared breath turns misty between them, fever-pitch heat meeting the cold room air as Rey tries to collect herself. He doesn’t miss it, though, the way her pulse pops at her neck and her cheeks flush, the way her nostrils flare and her breathing refuses to simmer down. His lashes flutter, eyes _just_ barely open, before he lets out a satisfied, husky sound.

“There,” he mumbles, before his head plops back down on the pillow unceremoniously. “Kissed properly.” Then he chuckles to himself as Rey stares at his expression wide eyed. He’s _officially_ going under. “Funny… you usually don’t stay this long.”

His breath steadies back down again, deep lungfuls being drawn in and expelled. She stares, her own chest beating erratically. It takes about five tries to dislodge him without waking him, and by the end of it Kylo’s on his back, lying spread-eagle on the bed, with Rey barely managing to keep upright at the foot of it.

Nope.

She could not return to that bed again.

She looks around, starting to feel the chill after basically being roasted alive under Kylo’s fever-pitched torso. There’s nothing there. Rey runs back to the other room, the room where their clothes are. She grabs a comforter and throws it over her shoulders. The only other thing is his hoody hanging on a peg and she would _not_ wear his clothes and smell his cologne after basically being drowned in the sheer smell of him, spicy and woody and _red-hot._ Rey grunts her displeasure and decides to walk off her stupid arousal, walking down stairs and roaming the halls and the rooms silently in the darkness as she restarts her count back down from one hundred.

When she wakes up, it’s to the smell of coffee.

Rey blinks with bleary eyes and stares at the mug in front of her, the steam wafting up and towards her nose, and she takes in a deep breath before bolting upright. The comforter over her shoulder falls around her lap and she looks at the coffee. She’d fallen asleep with her cheek on the table.

“That’s an interesting choice for sleeping,” Kylo murmurs from above her. Her eyes snap up to him. He looks exhausted, no doubt still feeling the effects of his fever the previous night as he pops two Tylenol into his mouth from the bottle in front of him and makes a face at his tea, taking a seat across from her.

She blinks, mouth gaping as a collection of memories rush to meet her… his arms around her, his lips on her neck, her shoulder, her jaw… the mindblowing kiss he’d given her the night before. Her brain does a somersault right along with her stomach at the reminder.

“I—“ she starts, and he arches an eyebrow. Somehow, he can meet her eyes _just fine_ , but Rey has to avert hers. So she does the only thing she can, which is to grab onto the coffee mug for dear life and drown in it as an excuse not to interact with the man who had had her nearly panting the night before.

“Good morning,” he says after gulping down some tea. “Couldn’t sleep?”

_If you only knew, pal._

“Uhm, no. I woke up and…” Rey starts, then licks her lips, trying to test the waters. “You were mumbling.”

“Oh,” Kylo says, giving her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you… must have been dreaming.”

 _Understatement of the freaking_ year!

“You can go up and nap,” he says, tilting his head towards the stairs as he surveys her expression. His eyes fall on her lips only to jerk away. “It’s not like we have anything to do or anywhere to be today.”

Just as she’d guessed, he doesn’t remember. Rey takes in a deep breath and nods, turning back to her mug of coffee. Kylo only frowns at some toast he has in front of him. She notices that he set out a second plate with toast for her as well.

Taking care of her even after they fought.

This reminds her of _why_ they’d fought, however, and Rey sighs. She didn’t owe him an answer, yet… she owed him _something_. Rey doubted the kiss he’d given her yesterday was _it_ , but fuck, at least maybe an explanation. If not for Finn’s sake then for her own.

“He’s a good man,” she says around the lip of her mug. Kylo’s eyes travel up slowly to meet hers.

He hasn’t shaved and she can see the beginnings of a goatee. His hair’s in a disarray and he looks a little pale, yet his eyes are sharp and intense and it reminds her a bit too much of the way he’d looked at her the previous night. Her treacherous body tries to rise up to the ocassion so Rey bites down hard on her tongue until it dissipates. Kylo, thankfully, says nothing, leaving her to take a deep breath and strengthen her resolve.

“Finn,” she explains. “He’s a good man.”

“Okay,” Kylo says, studying his toast for a moment. It prompts her, some desperate part of her wanting for him to believe her.

“He really is,” she offers, “he’s kind, and gentle. He would never abandon me here just because he couldn’t be assed to come find me…” Rey says. “We can’t afford for him to take time off, no matter how much I would have liked him to. I…”

At this she stops. What could she say to defend herself?

“I care for him. He’s been there for me through a lot of hardships, even when he didn’t need to be. I just…” Rey resists the urge to groan, instead twirling her coffee in her cup with a spoon. “I want to propose, yes. But that’s not the only reason I don’t turn around and go back. I just… there’s my landlord, you see? He…” she clears her throat.

God, this is uncomfortable, and she’s sharing more about her past with a total stranger than she’d _ever_ shared with even her friends. But he’d known how to act with her in the bath that one day.

“Yes?” Kylo prompts when she stops too long, and his voice is _curiously_ level. Non-judgemental. Yeah, he might know how to deal with this. At least he wouldn’t judge her for it. Maybe him knowing might also explain at least one of the reasons she’s so set on getting to Finn. Kylo doesn’t push further, so she wraps herself up in courage and continues.

“He used to be my foster father. He wasn’t… a pleasant man.” Rey says, explaining to him how she’d hidden from Plutt until he left for work because the man had a habit of _grabbing_ at her, trying to pass it off as fatherly affection when he’d squeeze her thigh, or gently _tap_ her ass, and the touches had only become worse the older she’d gotten. The ghosted touches down her chest when throwing an arm over her shoulder. The way he’d pull her in close to his side, swallowing her under his ever-growing girth and his arm. The way he’d plant kisses that lingered too long, or how she would hear him against her shower door, panting, while Rey tried to ignore the sounds and finish washing her hair. She chokes back a whimper and has to look away at the murderous look on Kylo’s face, but continues on bravely.

“He was…” she can’t continue, so she changes tracks. “Anyway. As soon as I aged out of the system, Finn took me in. We still ended up renting from Plutt because two kids recently aged out could never afford to live in NYC elsewhere… and… well… I’m a freelance photographer. He’s a writer. We _still_ don’t make enough. As long as I stay away from Plutt, it’s not so bad. The apartment’s nice and anything that breaks I can fix.”

She certainly could do that. She’d spent enough time doing ‘the super’s work’ as New Yorkers called it, but really, it was Plutt’s work, fixing broken things in tennants’ apartments. A way to _pay_ for her room and board. Still, if she can’t get a hold of Finn she’d have to return. Life doesn’t stop for marriage proposals. When she finishes they sit there for a long moment in silence.

“You’re not going back,” Kylo says.

Rey blinks and looks up.

“Excuse me?” she asks, confused. When Kylo speaks again, it’s with an authority she hadn’t realized he posessed, tone hard and eyes harder, speaking the words as though it meant the matter were closed.

“Even if… _Finn_ , you said his name is? Even if he can’t return to Dublin right away, you’re not going back to New York on your own.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When will these two kids learn that stomping around in the rain is _not_ a good way to go about being on a road trip? It only causes issues.


	18. Pillow Fort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey keeps blushing for no apparent reason and Kylo isn't sure _where_ to pin his eyes. Talk about awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, you guys ;---; the outpouring of support over the last chapter was insane and YOU GUYS MAKE ME WANT TO CRY, why are you so lovely to me? ;-;  
> Thank you as always for taking the time to read and to water your author-plant in the comments section. I have happily sprouted a whole bunch of new leaves since the last chapter ;) And now, after THAT kiss, we get to see Kylo's POV. Enjoy!

She laughs at him.

Kylo’s frown intensifies as he tilts his head, watching as Rey progresses from giving a single hiccupy snort to disintegrating into a crumbling pile of giggles, cheek dropping on the table just like he’d found her when he’d come downstairs.

He swallows and crosses his arms, choosing to wait her out.

It had been a blessing and a curse to find her gone from bed.

Her absence had allowed him to lie there staring at the ceiling for fifteen minutes in solitude, trying to digest the thoughts crossing through his mind as his body worked itself back down from an unfortunate case of morning wood — Since _when_ had he turned into this… this… teenager? Having wet dreams and waking up with an erection?  –– Kylo lets out a grunt, partly at the thought and partly at Rey’s giggling.

Still, it had also been a curse, because he’d then been allowed the fifteen minutes to stare at the ceiling and recall in increasingly vivid detail how, in his stupid dreams, Rey had squirmed under him. How soft, and _warm_ , and deliciously present she’d felt. Dreams were not supposed to feel that way. Not even the vivid ones. And he _certainly_ shouldn’t be dreaming about a girl he’s only known for like a week at most.

Now, as he looks at her, his eyes have trouble focusing on the whole as he fixates on individual features: the warm hazel eyes that had stared at him wide eyed, expectant, the long neck now peeking from under her hair that he’d nuzzled and kissed in his dreams, the now messy, glossy brown hair into which he’d breathed. When they fall on her lips, curled away from her teeth as she chuckles to herself for no apparent reason, he unconsciously licks his own. Those had been bruised and plump, parted so very invitingly… He jolts up in his seat and looks away with increasing trepidation. He _needs_ to get a hold of himself. It was a stupid dream, nothing more, and Kylo had no right to be fantasizing about her. Not even in his unconscious state.

Rey finally gets over her fit of hiccups, working through composing her facial expression as she looks at him with what looks like near tears in her eyes. He very much doubt those are happy tears.

“And how, exactly, do you expect me to stay here for a month?” she asks, not necessarily with any accusation. She must think he’s joking. Kylo _tsks_. This is hardly something he'd ever joke about. 

“What’s his name?” Kylo asks, changing the subject back to her earlier confessions.

“Whose name?” she asks, confused.

“Your landlord.” He explains. “What’s his name?”

Rey chews on her lower lip and once more he has to look away, this time pinning his line of sight on the half-empty mug of tea in his hands. She sighs, letting out a weak huff of air that drags out for a few seconds, as if she were trying to expel bad memories along with it.

“Unkar Plutt,” she murmurs, then shrugs. “Not that it matters, really.”

Oh, but it matters.

Kylo’s unease at the remnants of a dream that would _not in a billion years_ ever happen in real life dissipates immediately, if only momentarily. He burns the name into the back of his mind for later use, already running through a mental list of friends he could call on, the strings he could pull and unpaid favors he could cash in, but that could wait. For now he focuses on the woman in front of him, looking frail and exhausted. Before he can say anything further, however, Rey gifts him a sincere if tired smile.

“Your concern is touching,” she says, eyes crinkling as her smile widens until he can’t see anything but her pinched lashes, then her face relaxes slowly, “but I can’t stay beyond the next few days. I don’t even have enough clothes to last me through another week. I have to get back to life, and to work. I have bills…” His mind immediately flies to the Louis Vuitton bag sitting upstairs. Rey continues staring into her mug and lets out a soft snort, worrying her thumb over the handle anxiously. “Plenty of bills, now. I admit when I went into that airport, I… well, let’s just say it wasn’t the most exemplary of moments where my judgement is concerned.”

Ah.

_That explains the bag, at least._

He could hardly judge, though. His own record on recklessness has been astounding his whole life.

“I have to go back, get my financial affairs in order, return to my life as it is. _Pay the rent_. I can wait for Finn there, I guess…”

Kylo stares back down at his tea. Before he can think on it too hard, he lets the words fall out.

“You can stay with me.”

“What?” she asks.

There’s a distinct sound she makes when her voice strangles with disbelief, and he’d only heard it once before: finding out that Finn would be gone for a month. It forces his eyes back up, and he has to tell his brain to _quiet down_ so he can think.

Kylo clears his throat uncomfortably. The third time in a matter of minutes. _Should_ he allow himself to get ensnared further into this girl’s life?

The concept is a dangerous one. Allowing himself to do so could very easily be the biggest mistake of _his_ life –– sure, he’d basically followed after her for days now like a lost puppy, with no regard to his original plans –– but a week isn't a _month_. Still, he could hardly allow himself in good conscience to let her return to a pedophile.

No. He couldn’t send her back to this Plutt character.

“You can stay with me,” he repeats a bit more firmly this time, finding the courage to finally lift his gaze and meet hers. She’s staring at him wide eyed. “Until your boyfriend gets back. I’m taking over my uncle’s pub and have no idea what awaits me once I get there, but at least you’d have lodging.”

Rey stares at him, her face lighting up with hope for a moment then clouding over again. It makes his heart twist a little bit in his chest. He leans forward before she can refuse him, firmly holding her in place with a look.

“Just think about it, alright? We have two days. You can tell me then.”

Rey worries at her bottom lip, an anxious habit much like his own. When her eyes fall on his face, a blush creeps up her cheeks before she dips her eyes back down. Kylo bites at the flesh of the inside of his mouth until it starts to bump up with teeth marks and stares out the window, feeling the levels of awkward rising the longer the silence stretches. With a sigh, he finally pushes his chair back and gets up, the screech of metal on wooden floors grating to his ears.

Anything to end the silence.

“Come on,” he says, tilting his head out the door. Rey follows him with her big blanket thrown around her slender frame. She looks so helpless he wants to move in closer and wrap her up in it further like a safety blanket, but he doubts she’d appreciate the gesture. She stands outside and tilts her head up to the sun, smiling, before taking a wide look around at their green surroundings.

“It really is beautiful when it’s not raining,” she comments. Kylo lets out a soft hum.

“It has its charms,” he says truthfully.

“You’ve been here before?” she asks, tilting her head to look at him with open curiosity on her face. He’s aware that by now he knows more about her than she knows about him. Kylo smiles lightly.

“On business. Though I’ve seen more of it following after you than I have any other time,” he teases, trying to dissipate the tension from earlier, though in truth much of it is surely just in his own head.

Though… perhaps not.

Rey lets out a soft snort but her cheeks turn pink again. Every time that happens his body seems to want to _react_ as if being drawn magnetically to her. He shoves his hands in his jean pockets and plants his feet firmly on the ground, refusing to indulge in the idea.

It gets awkward again, and _Jesus Christ_ if Kylo doesn’t know what to do with awkward. He takes in a deep breath, forcing himself to stop imagining her lips locked with his every time he catches a glimpse of Rey’s face, or her fingers tangled in his hair. Kylo locks his jaw shut and stares out into the trees. It allows him a few minutes to breathe before she speaks again.

“What would you like to do?” she asks. Kylo thinks on it for a second.

What _would_ he like to do? That’s a dangerous question following so quickly on the heels of his previous thoughts. Kylo pastes an infuriating smirk on his face and turns it on her, because it’s much easier to just be the smartass right now.

“Not play Truth or Dare, for one,” he smarts. Rey snorts but doesn’t seem offended by it. _Good_.

“Fine, no Truth or Dare.” she agrees quickly before looking down at her clothes, pinching her face at the wrinkles while he takes in the rest of her. She looks like she got exactly zero sleep all night. Kylo worries at his lower lip for a moment.

“Go sleep. We have nothing to do for a while.”

Rey lets out a soft little groan as if wanting to fight him on it –– and _oh_ , but that sound automatically sets his skin on fire! What the _hell_ had that stupid dream done to him? ––then curls herself into her blanket, her body breaking into a wide yawn at the mention of sleep.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Yes. Yes he’s sure.

As long as she’s up there sleeping, then… then he could find a moment to compose himself and stop acting like a giant, awkward idiot. He nods, not having missed the way her eyes had drooped the second he mentioned sleep. She gives him a small smile and, when her eyes catch his, that blush creeps up on her face again, prompting his mind to inform him in no uncertain terms that it finds the tinge of pink on her appealing.

“Okay,” she says, wrapping herself up further and looking entirely too adorable that way. She walks towards the house, leaving him staring. As soon as she’s out of sight he plops himself down on the white bench and starts obsessively running his hands through his hair, his muscles finally unwinding.

_What on God’s green Earth are you doing, you stupid man?_

For the next two hours Kylo sits on that bench like a log as the sun shifts until he’s in the shadow, thumb worrying over his lower lip as he tries to erase every single trace of that dream of his. It doesn’t work, though. It’s like being told to not think about a pink Elephant: suddenly that’s all one can picture in their minds.

_It had all been a dream. A stupid, silly dream._

A mindblowingly hot dream, vivid as if he’d experienced it for real — and wasn’t that the crux of the matter — but still a silly dream nonetheless.

Nothing would come out of obsessing over it, yet he keeps thinking about it and _probably_ acting like a total idiot around her and _perhaps staring_ — it could be the only explanation to her constantly turning red whenever she caught his eyes. And now he’d offered to take her in for a month, because he’d be damned if he left her to just take her trainwreck of a life on the road by herself, much less land in NYC like a sitting duck for that creep landlord of hers.

The rest of that rant continues through his mind in a stream of consciousness resembling flowing lava, most of it involving self-flagellating over being a moron. He barely notices the time’s flown by until Rey comes out in a pale blue sundress that leaves _way too much leg_ exposed for Kylo’s peace of mind, wearing the flip flops Penny lent her.

She gifts him a small smile, and the flush on her cheeks is hard to miss.

Right.

Staring.

Fucking hell.

Kylo pins his eyes on her face to avoid looking elsewhere, except since when has that helped? certainly not since this morning.

“Sleep well?” he croaks, trying to swallow back his surprise at the sight of her looking so... so...

Rey grins.

“Yes,” she says, then surprises him by planting her hands on her hips. “We’re going for a walk.”

Kylo forgets his awkwardness long enough to arch an eyebrow at her.

“We are?”

“Yes,” she says, then commands him to follow with the crook of her finger as she turns around and… the back of the dress is just as revealing as the short hem. Rey stops at the gate and raises her eyebrows.

Somewhere in his brain Kylo’s mind provides that she probably picked those dresses for her boyfriend, but damn it if they wouldn’t give him a heart attack one of these days. He shuts it up, musing that his brain is _awfully talkative_ lately, then swallows and peels himself off the bench, quickly running to close the house door before following.

They walk in silence, Rey looking at her surrondings and Kylo painfully avoiding looking _at her._

 _“_ I’ve never seen this much green before,” Rey comments, her voice breathy and light, and for the first time Kylo sees an awe and wonder in her eyes that he’s never seen before. He frowns. Strange duckling.

“Imagine all the green you could see from here to Dingle for a month,” he murmurs, staring ahead. Despite his body’s _unfortunate_ behavior, he now had a moral obligation to this girl. Rey lets out a small laugh.

“Imagine that,” she muses with a shake of her head, long wavy hair shaking with it. “You can certainly be persuasive, Sir Ren.” she murmurs.

Kylo’s step nearly falters, the word ‘ _Sir’_ connected to his name falling far too easily from her lips. He recovers quickly nonetheless, Rey having walked ahead without noticing. He lengthens his stride.

“But really, I can take care of myself.”

Kylo hums.

“I don’t doubt it, but that’s not why I’m offering.” He runs his fingers through his hair again, his anxious tic now on overdrive. “Your being there is giving him the opportunity to wield power over you. People like your landlord do not change, they only adapt and find different ways to damage you. At least wait until your boyfriend comes back.”

Rey tilts her head to look at him from under long lashes, her fingers threaded in front of her as they take slow steps around the tiny little town, if it could be called a town, taking in the morning air.

“You’re awfully well versed in this,” she comments, tone careful and low. Kylo’s face splits into a half smile, half grimace.

“It is my job to be.” He responds. Rey’s brows rise.

“It is?”

She sounds so surprised that he’s finally forced to look at her. She’s so small and hesitant about everything, and yet so curious. _Unkar Plutt_ , he remembers the name with distaste, had never managed to break her entirely.

“Back in the states, as a partner for my old law firm, it was my job to put people like him behind bars.”

Rey stops. Stares. Kylo walks two steps forward before realizing she’s fallen behind and does an about turn, coming to stand before her with raised eyebrows.

“That explains so much!” she says, voice rising as if a lightbulb had gone off in her head. He frowns, but then she laughs. “Oh, I get it. That’s also how you managed to buy your house at _thirty two_ ,” she teases, recalling his grumbling before their fake sex charade. His ears turn red. “So what on earth are _you_ doing taking over a pub, Mr. Moneybags?”

Kylo grunts. “Mr. Moneybags?”

Rey cackles.

“Yes,” she says, “but don’t change the subject. From attorney to pub owner? That seems like quite the career change.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We got time,” Rey says, tilting her head curiously. Kylo runs his fingers through his hair a handful of times.

“Well,” he says, “If you really must know, it involves a woman.”

The open teasing on Rey’s face drops off in a flash and she hunches in on herself,giving him an apologetic look.

“Oh,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“

“No,” he says, staring off into the distance as he moves aside so they can continue walking. Rey immediately falls in step. “It’s fine.”

Rey chews on her lip as they keep walking, stealing glances up at him before looking away with a clear blush on her face as she starts anxiously twisting her fingers together in front of her. So different from her usual fire.

“Is it salvageable?” she asks, as if she were talking about a piece of scrap metal scavenged from the city’s junkyards rather than a relationship, friendships, and business connections. “Can’t you go back and try to work it out?”

Kylo sighs, _really_ disliking the idea of opening up this particular can of worms just yet.

“Are you hungry?” He effectively changes the subject as they take a turn to head back towards the house. Rey’s stomach grumbles in response as if having been addressed directly and he chuckles. Still, she mercifully drops the subject and follows meekly at his side.

By the time their meal’s been made (with Rey’s help after she basically _demands_ to be allowed to do something), they sit at the table quietly, pushing their food around. It’s a long time before Rey finds the courage to talk again.

“I really am sorry,” she says, shoving a steamed broccoli florette around her plate. Kylo lowers his own fork gently on his plate as well. He’s not very hungry.

“You didn’t know,” he says, trying to placate her even as her shoulders deflate. Then her lip quirks sardonically, eyes still glued to her nearly untouched food. That’s a first, really.

“Look at us. You running from a woman and me running after a man.”

Despite himself, Kylo lets out a soft chuckle.

“We make quite the team,” he agrees, watching her from under half lidded eyes. Perhaps at least they had _this_ in common. Other than their tempers, that is. As it turns out, Rey from New York and Kylo Ren from Los Angeles share an uncanny ability: running from their problems only to land themselves in trouble. From the frying pan to the fire, as they say.

Kylo lets out an agitated puff of air and pushes his plate away.

“Come on, duckling,” he reaches over and takes her half empty food, noticing the rather intense flush on her cheeks. _Again._ What’s the count up to now? Anxiety starts bubbling in the pit of his stomach. Had he done something? She’d never done that before because of being addressed by the monicker. He refuses to ask, though. “Help me put this away.”

The food is put away and the dishes cleaned, yet the house is empty and silent and once again they find themselves with nothing to do but stare at each other, or find some sort of indoor activity. Truth or Dare is _certainly_ out of the question, so to entertain each other they decide to pile all the couch cushions in front of the small gas fireplace –– decidedly set to _off_ , though as the hours go by the living room starts quickly cooling –– and read books to each other. They mostly end up laughing the night away at Rey’s random side commentary and Kylo’s serious failure at faking European accents.

The next two days would go in a much similar way, Rey and Kylo slipping into a weird bubble of domesticity in a house that isn’t theirs — Kylo would feed the chickens and Rey would make them breakfast. Rey would start the laundry, both hers and his, and Kylo would try his damned best to dust the rooms and make the beds, feeling far too big in this tiny dollhouse. In the afternoons they’d take a walk around the small block, then Kylo would make dinner while Rey hummed and set the table.

_It’s… nice._

The admission bubbles up to his mind when dinner’s finished and the dishes are washed, and Rey wanders over to their pillow fort and picks up another book. Tomorrow Penny and Martin would arrive, and they would be on their way. They had painfully avoided talk of Dingle and her landlord again for those two days, but it would have to be faced in the morning. When the living room starts to cool down Kylo leans forward and turns on the gas fireplace. It immediately bathes their small little fort in light. Rey lets out a satisfied sigh, scooting forward so her long legs can bathe in the warmth. Kylo has to, _once again_ , look anywhere _but._

_She’s going to give me a heart attack._

“So,” Rey asks, leaning back on her pillows and staring at him, an eyebrow cocked up in question. “Why Ireland?”

Kylo grunts but shakes his head.

Why, indeed.

He could tell her he’d grabbed onto the only shred of hope he’d had after reaching his apartment, deciding on the spot he’d move to Ireland –– _for a few months_ , he’d told himself –– because of an old birthday card. But he’s not ready for that.

Instead he pinches his nose and lets out an overly dramatic sigh.

“So I can be a recluse and not have to deal with shitty people.”

Well… some of that’s true, at least. Rey laughs, a loud bell-like laugh that chimes around the living room and bounces off the walls.

“Seriously? I would have never pegged you for one. Then again…” she says, laughter in her gaze as she looks at him with impossibly bright eyes. Kylo arches an eyebrow at her, propping himself up on his elbow and turning until he can face her.

“Then again what, exactly?” he asks, tone light despite the sudden spike of curiosity. What was it like to see himself through _her_ eyes, he wondered?

Rey’s eyes _shine_ with mischief.

“You know…” she says, waving her hand in his face as if that explains something, close enough to make his hair sway. His eyebrows shoot up again.

“No actually, I don’t. Please enlighten me, Rey,” he says as he lets his voice drop and narrows his eyes playfully, shoulderblades moving like a predator waiting to pounce.

Rey giggles. “Well, you know. The…” she says again, and her hand once more disturbs the hairs at his temple. Her hand’s so close he can smell her soap on her. He doesn’t think when he grabs her hand to stop her from doing that, his fingers caging hers, leaning forward and hovering on instinct.

“Hmmm, the… what? Are you making fun of me, duckling?” he teases, making a face.

Rey lets out a breath. _That_ too disturbs his hair.

Too close.

He _should_ have thought that through.

Rey’s throat bobs up and down as her eyes widen, widen, widen, like someone who’s seen a ghost. Kylo frowns, but then there’s another flash across his vision, one that mimics reality now: _An erratic pulse at her neck._

He jerks away as if electrocuted, dropping her hand and its warmth along with it. Warmth he… recognizes… tingling at his fingertips.

_He must be going insane._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important links:  
> 1\. [ Rey's pale blue dress](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/151807508915/a-proposal-by-any-other-name-chapter-18-reys).
> 
>  
> 
> Rey was about to make a funny and then Kylo had to get in her face. 10 points to gryffindor for who guesses what it is.


	19. Murphy's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey loses her plane ticket, and Murphy's Law is still going strong: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap an update, hallelujah. Thank you for your patience while I took a break/got caught up with other deadlines, everyone. I know it's been a while, but here we are! Enjoy the chapter!

_The Next Day..._

**2:10PM**

The plane ticket in her hand feels heavy, heavier than a single piece of paper should. Rey grazes her thumb over the departure date, thinking back to the desk lady who sold it to her. Maybe that ticket lady had known that things would go infinitely wrong for Rey. Maybe she’d thought that after getting to her boyfriend, Rey would want some time to spend in the land of enchantment. Either way, she’d been granted all this time, and she could board her plane tomorrow and go back to life as usual, and forget that it all happened.

That thought brings on a sharp pain under her ribs, and she can't decide on whether the ache is a direct response to her misfortune or having to forget, so she lifts her eyes from her ticket home and looks about the train station instead. There are a few people there, all of them gazing about as they collectively wait for the train to arrive. All of them look like they've been having fun in Ireland. She immediately envies them that, eyeing an overly chipper group of tourists swarming together and chattering away with enthusiasm. Rey automatically searches for a pair of gold brown eyes that aren’t there.

_Stop it, Rey._

She closes her eyes and breathes in slowly while counting back from ten, an old but useful tactic, refusing to let the unease in the back of her head chew at her from the inside out and trying as best as she can to empty her mind, but her thoughts keep going back to Kylo Ren. To that first crashing domino that started the chain of reaction which would end with her standing here at the train station by herself.

 _“Seriously? I would have never pegged you for one. Then again…”_ she’d teased when he’d confessed that he’d come to Ireland to become a hermit. Kylo had lifted a petulant eyebrow in her direction.

 _“Then again what?”_ Kylo had asked, frowning, but his eyes had twinkled and Rey hadn’t been able to help herself when he’d turned to look at her. Something about the way he focused on her...

She’d gone for it. It would be her one big mistake.

 _“You know,”_ she waved her hand in his face, closer than she’d meant to, close enough for the air to disturb his hair and his breath to warm her palm, and when she’d spoken next he’d somehow transformed right in front of her eyes, the big bad wolf that hunted for little girls in red capes.

Still, she’d laughed. She’d laughed when he’d then asked her to enlighten him, laughed even as he moved closer, because she could hardly find it in herself to be terrified of a wolf with golden-brown eyes, even if he was right next to her. Laughed as she once again taunted him by waving her hand in his face, about to make a childish joke about his nose being the reason he wanted solitude, because Kylo Ren may be wolfish, down to the thick waves of his jet black hair and eyes that glowed more golden than brown in the firelight, but he was hardly dangerous.

At least, that’s what she’d thought.

Until, that is, he’d grabbed her hand and hovered over her, effectively boxing her in with his elbows, and Rey’s heart had started to stutter. He was awake this time, awake and looking at her the same way he had before while running a raging fever, and perhaps it was this fact that now made her shiver as she valiantly tried to meet his gaze. Kylo looked at her like he wanted to devour her, a tasty little morsel for the taking and he a very hungry creature. He’d looked like he’d forgotten to wear his sheepskin as he’d smiled down at her, his fingers lacing with her own though he’d hardly noticed.

 _“Are you making fun of me, duckling?”_ he’d asked, and her heart stopped stuttering and started racing at the way his words ended on a soft, deep-chested rumble, his fingers tightening around hers for a moment.

_That stupid nickname._

Then he’d jerked away, pulling away from her with lightning speed as if yanked by the collar, freeing her from the prison he’d made for her inside his arms.

Rey had bolted upright, citing exhaustion as her excuse to end the night while awkwardly running her fingers down her clothes and stealing half-glances in his direction. Kylo had simply nodded, seeming to remember his well-mannered disguise, and bid her a good night. He hadn’t come upstairs to sleep, and Rey had to ride out her mixed feelings of relief and disappointment all by herself, her eyes permanently  glued to the ceiling. She hadn’t slept that night, deciding then and there that she could  _not_ stay after that. 

Instead she’d spent the night rolling around in her own well-brewed concoction of despair and embarrassment, with a nice juicy side of pent up frustration for her to drown in every time her mind’s eye turned to Kylo Ren’s lips whispering about kissing her properly. It had been a very, _very_ long night. It had been an even longer morning the next day as they’d bid their goodbyes to their hosts, awkwardly taking their few possessions and packing them into the car he’d bought from Martin (because of course he would. Throwing money at his problems was Kylo Ren’s MO).

Then the time of reckoning had come and Rey had very quickly told Ren that she would be returning home. He had _not_ liked that one bit. He'd asked why. She'd repeated the same old reasons she'd given him before: work, life, bills. Yes, she could deal with Plutt, she'd promised a million times. Yes, she'd be fine. She'd reassured him of the same thing again when they'd finally arrived at the train station, not that it had altered Kylo's dark expression or placated his doubts. 

She glances at her plane ticket again, then reaches into her pocket and grabs her phone, thumbing the home button and opening up her abnormally bare contacts list. Finn. Poe. Jessica. Bebe. Plutt (a number she hadn’t dialed in years but kept around nonetheless). Two college friends who sometimes wished her a happy birthday, and a new name. K. Ren.

Kylo had taken her phone and added his number the second they’d stepped up to the platform, all the while grumbling about her stupid decision to return to New York on her own, then shoved the phone back in her hand and stared at her dead in the eye.

“If you run into problems,” he’d clipped before turning on his heel and leaving without another word. That would be the extent of their good-byes.

It was fine, she’d promised herself. It was fine and the dull ache blooming inside her had nothing to do with his retreating back when up until now he’d always been walking towards _her_ instead. It had nothing to do with Kylo Ren getting back in the car and driving away without a second glance. It was fine. She’d never been good at goodbyes anyway.

She looks up from her screen, momentarily distracted from her thoughts by the sound of roaring engines as a train approaches on her side of the tracks, and everything else happens too quickly.

A group of tourists, all chattering excitedly in a foreign language, crowd around her as the train pulls up and the doors open. They push forward as one, completely taking over her personal bubble, jostling her so hard in their haste to get inside the train that Rey’s hold on her phone and ticket slips.

“Shit,” she calls, turning around and bending down to grab her phone, trying hard not to get knocked on her face by the crowd.

_Shit._

She reaches further, weaving her arm past the rush of bodies trying to get on board before the doors close, and finally becomes a lifelong subscriber of the theory of Murphy’s Law when she manages to grab her phone only for somebody to accidentally kick her plane ticket into the thin edge between the platform and the train itself.

“Sorry!” somebody calls out to her, probably an apology for the knee that meets her shoulder and knocks her back, nearly landing her on her ass.

_Shit._

“Wait, wait! Stop!” she calls, but the bodies keep pushing, trying to get inside before the doors close. Rey tries desperately to grab for the last visible bit of white paper as it slips through, trying not to get trampled by tourists entering the train when the doors ring and force her to remove her hand or have her fingers crushed.

Murphy’s law, alright. Rey groans, letting the doors close as she stands up again, but she’s too tired to even start railing against whoever up there had been messing with her all this time. Her energies had been thoroughly spent already.

Well, out of all the things that have happened to her, this one wasn’t so bad. At least this one could be fixed.

“Sorry,” somebody once again calls to her, but she’s too busy watching the blur of green landscape zooming past, replaying the trainwreck that’s been the last week and a half of her life on loop while rubbing her stinging shoulder.

All of this, and for what? Just so she could return home empty handed?

Rey rests her forehead against the cold glass, her eyes trained on her phone. At least this time it has plenty of battery life. Small silver linings.

She should call the airport, just in case. Make sure she could request a new printout of her ticket at the counter. Or she could call Finn, check in with him, see how he’s doing. Tell him about how insane her days have been, get a chance to hear him call her peanut. Inform him she’s going back home. The thought sends another wave of dull pain through her, manifesting in an odd tingling at her fingertips. She tightens her hold on her phone then hits the home button, the screen lighting up where she’d last left it: her contact list.

Finn. Poe. Jessica. Bebe. Plutt. Two college friends, and a new name. K. Ren.

Rey presses the last one and quickly brings it up to her ear before she can change her mind, listening to the ringtone intently.

She would thank him, she reasons. She would thank him then move on with her life. She isn’t good at saying goodbye, but he deserves as much. He finally picks up on the third ring.

 _“Let me guess, you’re in trouble,_ ” comes the familiar voice from the other end. Despite herself, Rey smiles.

“Why would you think I’m in trouble?” she asks, eyes glued on the green hills as they pass. There are no hellos, just like there had been no goodbyes.

 _“I told you to call me if you ran into problems,”_ he responds, the sound of his car’s engine coming as white noise in between silent breaks.

“I--” she begins, letting her gaze lift to the skies, big puffy clouds passing by faster than she can focus on any individual one. _I wanted to thank you. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to…_ “I lost my plane ticket.”

Kylo lets out a snort but remains silent, waiting for her to continue. Rey bites on her lower lip, refusing to embarrass herself further by telling him exactly how it happened. She could always request another one at the counter. A minute slowly ticks by, filled only with Kylo’s breathing and the sound of his engine and the _ch-ch-ch_ of the train running on its tracks.

 _“So what now?”_ he asks. There’s a small amount of distortion from hearing his voice through a phone rather than in person, and it's distracting. It makes his voice sound deeper than usual from the phone being held so close to his mouth. Rey licks her lips and pinches her eyes closed for a moment, forcing herself to concentrate.

She should tell him she’d call the airline, then Finn, then go home tomorrow. But he already knows she’d be going back, and he had been less than enthusiastic about it, continually shooting  disgruntled looks her way the whole drive from Martin’s house to the next train station, absentmindedly thumbing his lower lip in irritation or running his fingers through his hair. Rey had remained silent then, so she remains silent now.

 _“Maybe it’s a sign from the universe,”_ he says as if reading her mind, and though he intones the words slowly, carefully, as if unsure whether to be happy or upset about this new development, Rey can’t help the chuckle that escapes her.

“The universe has a fucked up sense of humor, then. Why can’t it send me a butterfly instead?” she sighs, eyes still trained on the blurry sky. Kylo chuckles.

 _“Knowing you, you wouldn’t notice it unless it slammed into you. This seems much more effective. Shouldn’t you be calling your boyfriend?”_ Kylo asks. It suddenly strikes her how odd it is to be talking to this man on the phone like this.

“Yeah,” she replies, fingers tapping on the glass absentmindedly, trying not to think too hard about the fact that, at the first sign of trouble, she had called somebody she’d only just met so many days ago instead of the man she’d spent so many years of her life with.

_“Yeah.”_

Another moment of silence. Rey concentrates on every drawn breath coming from the other end of the line, soothing and certain, like counting down from ten. She should finally say her thanks, her good-byes, and hang up. She doesn’t. Instead, she presses her phone closer to her ear, listening to Kylo remain on the other side, quiet and patient, neither one of them willing to hang up just yet.

 _“Rey?_ ” Kylo asks, her name falling from his mouth with startling familiarity. Rey blinks her eyes open.

“Hm?” she asks.

 _“Call me when you get to New York,”_ he says, words gentle yet hesitant. It’s not what he’d wanted to say. She smiles.

“Won’t you be too busy running an Irish pub?” she asks, tone light and teasing. The conversation once again plunges into silence. It’s not an awkward silence, though, so Rey rests her forehead against the window glass again and lets herself admire the countryside. After what feels like an eternity, Kylo finally speaks.

 _“I can make time_. _”_ He murmurs.

Her vision blurs for a moment. Rey blinks it away quickly so as to avoid having to acknowledge the disquiet or its source, then sighs and rubs her eyes, allowing herself a few seconds to compose herself before making up her mind. She looks up at the little screen displaying the next train stop.

What does she have to lose, at this point?

“Would you mind taking another small detour?” she asks, trying desperately to sound lighthearted because if trekking across Ireland following her instead of going to Dingle wasn’t a detour, Rey doesn’t know what it is. Still, she holds her breath and waits for his answer. When he finally speaks, she wonders why she’d bothered to do so to begin with. Somehow, deep inside of her, she’d always known what his answer would be.

_“Sure.”_

______________________

**3:15PM**

He’s already waiting on the platform when she exits the train at the next stop. She finds him leaning up against a metal column, hands shoved into his jean pockets and his head immediately starting to shake the second he spots her. She can almost _hear_ him thinking about the clumsy duckling who would lose her tickets the second she was left by herself. Rey breathes in deep and starts marching towards him, a walk of shame in all but name as the tiny smile spreading across his face widens the closer she gets to where he stands  

“Hello, stranger,” he finally says when she walks up to him, hands tightly fisted on the strap of her bag in front of her chest. “Long time no see.”

Such a long time indeed.

“I called you to say goodbye, you know?” she says, and Kylo’s brows lift when she steps up so close she has to look up at him.

“Okay.”

“I called you to say thank you, and goodbye, but then you had to go and talk about the universe,” she begins, eyes narrowed, the words spilling out of her faster than she’s used to speaking, fast enough so that she can’t regret it when she speaks next, or overthink it and clam up. “And maybe it does want to send me a message, because seriously, how does one lose their ticket home so easily?”

The corner of Kylo’s lips twitches, but he bites on his lip to keep from saying anything, so Rey takes it as an opportunity to continue.

“So I figured, okay, what can it hurt? I’ll listen to the stupid universe for once. It’s not like I have anything else to do at home other than sit and wallow in my misery,” she lets out a resigned, melodramatic sigh to cover up the fact that that would have indeed been her plan upon getting home. “It’s been over a week, right? I can do three more. That’s a whole month. At least I can wallow in misery in the company of a friend instead.”

Rey hesitates for a second, her grip on her bag strap tightening when, for the first time in her life, she asks for help.

“Is the job offer still open?” she asks, refusing to flinch away and hide as Kylo inspects her expression.

“Hmhmm,” Kylo says, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets while keeping a perfect poker face. Rey pinches her nose.

“Is it paid?” she asks. “If not, just food and lodging in exchange for work is fine.”

Kylo finally smiles. “It’s paid.”

She nods. Good. She could use that money to buy her plane ticket home when the time came. Rey brings in a deep gulp of air, letting her shoulders truly relax for the first time all day, then looks at him and scrunches up her nose.

“Don’t look so smug,” she chides, and Kylo gives her a goofy, mischievous smile. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Who, me? You’re the one who called _me_ , duckling,” he says, prying himself off the column and moving to stand next to her. It startles her how tall he is, despite having known it for so long now. He makes a grab for her bag strap and she lets him, watching as he then flings it over his shoulder. “I got Louie, come on,” he says about the bag, turning on his heel towards the exit and leaving her to follow quietly behind.

Kylo tosses her bag -- _Louie --_ onto the backseat of a 1960s red Camaro and closes the door before motioning her to get in. It’s the kind of car old men like Martin purchase to continually work on but never actually drive in fear of accidentally putting a scratch on the hood, and Martin had taken excellent care of it, the glossy finish of the cherry red paint completely spotless.

She thinks back to Martin’s face, eyes bright and smile wide as he handed over the key and in turn received a check for a very nice sum of money, glad that somebody is finally taking his girl out for a spin. Kylo gives the hood an affectionate pat on his way to the driver’s seat and Rey rolls her eyes. Maybe not just old men.

She gets in on the passenger’s side and buckles up, then turns to Kylo. Though his hands are already on the shift and the wheel, his attention is decidedly on her. He smirks.

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighs, “you got what you wanted. Now drive.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He says, his smirk widening as he shifts into first gear, then second, then deftly maneuvers them out of the parking lot.

It’s as if she’d never gotten out of the car this morning to begin with, except this time Kylo Ren seems to be in a much better mood, quietly whistling to himself as he drives, looking way too big in a too-small car cab. She closes her eyes and listens to his nonsensical whistles, relaxing her muscles one by one and letting her mind wander, the sound of Kylo’s whistling and the car engine lulling her with an odd sense of comfort.

She has a _plan_ now. Plans were good. Plans gave her direction. Plans kept her from living on the street, or from starving. They gave her something to strive for. In the face of all of her misfortunes, ending up stuck with Kylo Ren might have turned out to be a blessing after all, no matter how irritating he could be at times, and now her plans depended on him.

“Were you really calling to say goodbye?” he asks, and Rey’s eyes shoot open. It takes her a second, but then she takes in the noticeably darker, cloudy sky. A glance at her phone informs her that it’s way later than when she’d gotten in the car. She’d fallen asleep.

“Well, you certainly didn’t say it,” she replies, curling her toes inside her shoes and readjusting in her seat to look at him, her own small version of a stretch.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to,” he replies, thumbing his lip again. She’d started to pick up on his nervous tics, and this one was oddly endearing. She shakes her head.

“You weren’t wrong,” she lies. “So, how long until we reach your uncle’s pub?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Hmm,” she says, fidgeting with her phone again.

_Would you mind taking another small detour?_

_Sure._

How many detours had he made for her now? How many precious hours spent? How much had he given her for no reason other than she was alone and lost? Certainly more than most had given her in her life.

 _You deserve better_ , he’d said, feverish and clinging onto her like a lifeline for the first time in all of their time spent together, and even then, he’d only thought to put her first.

Rey opens up her contact list again and stares at Finn’s name, reciting his number in her head digit by digit without needing to look then quietly counting the seconds as they pass by, before her eyes fall on Kylo’s name, hesitating for just a second. It takes her two clicks to add his name to her favorites, her heart doing a weird little flip. Then she opens his contact and starts reading the phone number absentmindedly, searing it into the back of her mind. She might as well. She probably would be calling him a lot more often for the next three weeks.

“About last night--” Kylo starts. Rey sits up straighter in her seat, knocking her knees together.

“It’s nothing, forget about it,” she says before he can continue, snatching sidelong glances at him. “If anything. It was my fault. I’m sorry.”

Kylo looks at her for a second, hand tightening on the wheel before his eyes turn back to the road. “You apologize too much, you know that, right?”

“I’m sorry,” she replies automatically to his accusation.

Perhaps she’s apologizing for the awkwardness, or maybe she’s apologizing for something else, she doesn’t know. She hadn’t known what she’d been doing with this man for over a week and a half now. Kylo lets out a soft chuckle. Rey cringes.

“You also don’t listen very well, apparently,” he shakes his head and gives her a wry smirk, though it disappears quickly enough when he once again focuses on the road ahead. “I should be the one apologizing. If I made you uncomfortable in any way, know that it wasn’t my—“

“It’s _fine_ ,” she repeats. “Look, if I’m going to survive the next three weeks you have to stop reminding me about how I’ve made an utter fool out of myself repeatedly.”

Kylo hums, his airs of amusement returning. “Alright, fine. As long as you don’t remind me of the multiple times I’ve done the same.”

“Deal.”

Kylo laughs at her rushed agreement, reaching for the radio and turning it on, and Rey finally sinks back into the leather seat, gazing out the window at the beginnings of incoming rain spattering the glass. She wraps her arms around her waist and closes her eyes, thinking that perhaps her string of bad luck has finally come to an end.

______________________

**4:35PM**

Rey weaves in and out of consciousness to the muffled sound of the radio, only to once again be abruptly brought back by a different sort of noise: a dying engine. She should have known better than to start counting her blessings too quickly.

“What?” She looks up, startled into alertness, listening to Kylo cussing under his breath.

“Wait here.”

Kylo gets out of the car into what’s now become full-on rain and Rey watches out of the rearview mirror as he pops open the trunk. A minute later, he slams it shut, stalking all the way back and plopping himself into the driver’s seat, shaking the water out of his hair before turning off the engine. He frowns at the keys as if everything that’s ever happened were their fault, and Rey would find it hilarious if not for the fact that she's been conditioned to expect the worst. Kylo rubs at his face, clearing away the droplets of water pooling on his lashes before turning to Rey with a dry smile.

“We’re out of gas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh it's so nice to be back, haha. We're not done with the shenanigans. Sorry to all of you who got worried that I'd dropped this story. NOT THE CASE AT ALL! Though this is a much shorter chapter than most, simply because what happens next needs to be from Kylo's POV. I still hope you enjoyed it, though! 
> 
> Thanks as always for all the support, comments, and massive amounts of love you've given me and this story. It's always so very appreciated.


	20. Gas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurrah, an update!  
> Thank you, thank you, thank you for being so sweet and watering your author plant in the comments section the last chapter. You guys brought such a giant smile to my face with your warm welcome back. Ilu guys. Enjoy this one!

**4:38PM**

“We’re out of gas.”

Thunder rolls in the distance as if on cue, trumpeting their bad luck. It would trumpet more than just bad luck, but neither Rey nor Kylo could possibly know that.

He sighs and readjusts in his seat while Rey lets out a half resigned groan that may or may not have been a murmured _‘of course,’_ slumping into herself to get comfortable; then the silence that had followed them around for days descends over their small shared space, never quite unbearable yet permeated with the bloated tension of a single breath held in too long.

Kylo looks out the window towards the darkening sky, past the rain drops slipping down the glass, his hearing alternating between the pitter patter of the rain and the steady draw and release of Rey’s breathing. Every single breath draws him in, a homing device no matter how desperately he tries to listen to anything else ever since their phone call, and there’s nothing to do but sit back and wait–– wait for the rain to stop, wait for Rey to say something, wait for the other shoe to drop. It must somehow be his fault, he muses, but waits nonetheless.

None of those things happen, though. Instead the rain intensifies, the silence continues, and Kylo finally lets out an exasperated grunt while combing his fingers through now damp hair. Rey doesn’t acknowledge the sound at all, too busy looking out the windshield and smiling.

“How was the drive after you left me at the station?” she asks. It’s not what he’d expected her to say whatsoever. Kylo blinks, looking out the windshield as well.

“Why do you ask?” he asks.

“Because it seems like rain and bad luck keep following me around.” Rey laughs. “So I wanted to know how you were getting along there while I wasn’t around.”

Kylo snorts. He could hardly disagree.

“If you must know, it was nice and sunny,” he teases, “warm breeze, perfect weather for driving with the windows down while singing along to some really bad country song.”

It has the intended effect. Rey throws her head back and laughs, her hair falling back to give him a perfect view of her slender neck as it stretches, her eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. Those laughs are rare, and it surprises him how much he cherishes hearing it, how quickly it lifts his spirits, and how easy it is to have her again by his side despite her uncanny ability to run into misfortune no matter where she goes. He smiles.

“Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll finally stumble on a rainbow and a pot of gold,” Rey says, giving him a sardonic smile.

“Complete with a leprechaun,” he finishes for her.

Rey snorts, but it’s quickly followed by another tiny laugh. Kylo’s smile widens, a conditioned response to her delight.

He had turned the car around the second she’d asked him to, and even with the rain and the lack of gas, when she laughed like that he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset. Knowing she wouldn’t be going back to that creep landlord of hers is a small victory no matter the cost. He had a moral duty, he’d reminded himself. That had been the sole reason he’d followed her all over the place to begin with. A moral duty to make sure this girl didn’t fall into the wrong hands. So, the second she’d said ‘come,’ Kylo had followed like a puppy.

Then there are his own selfish reasons… As soon as he’d been left alone Kylo had started thinking about what he’d left behind. Rey had been his shield, guarding him inside a bubble of her own creation against the reason he’d boarded a plane to Dublin to begin with, making him forget without even trying to, and her absence had left him painfully exposed. Yes, he’d been happy to turn the car around.

Rey interrupts his train of thought when she leans back in her seat, putting her feet up on the dashboard to make herself comfortable, legs stretching out in front of her in one of those dresses of hers. Kylo closes his eyes for a moment, lamenting the fact that she has no idea what she’s doing to him with such a simple motion or the fact that had it been anybody else, Kylo would have hardly noticed to begin with. That alone annoys him to no end.

_They’re. Just. legs._

“So we’re stranded out in the middle of nowhere with no gas,” Rey says, counting out the misfortunes on one hand, “with no food and no cellphone signal,” she keeps counting. “And no idea how far out the next gas station is.”

“Pretty much,” he says as the sound of rain slamming down on top of the car makes the air inside vibrate. “It seems we’re stuck together in here. At least until it stops raining.”

“Better than stuck out there.” She shrugs, pointing out the window to the rain. “Also, the company’s not half bad.”

Kylo turns to look at her again, pinching his nose like a child and giving her a mocking once over, though his ears start heating up under his damp hair at the subtle compliment. “That’s debatable.”

Rey smirks but says nothing to that, so Kylo leans his head back against the leather seat and closes his eyes, once again zeroing in on her breathing. Without the sound of an engine and the music playing, and nothing else but the white noise of rain, his attention returns to the one thing he should _not_ be focusing on.

“Kylo?” Rey’s voice comes breathy and soft after a moment. Kylo fights the urge to crack his eyes open, bouncing his knee instead for something to do and trying not to think too hard about the way his name sounds when she says it. If there’s one thing he’s learned in his life, it’s that the longer he allows himself to think the more muddled his thoughts become.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” she replies. “For everything. You didn’t have to. I know I’ve acted… weird, but I promise you I’m _not_ a weirdo and I’ll work hard while I stay with you, okay? I won’t run away with all your money or set the place on fire with my bad luck. So you don’t need to worry, all I need is a place to stay.”

“I know,” he says, smiling to himself with his eyes still closed while he tries to wipe away memories of a kiss that never happened from the inside of his eyelids. It’s not like he hadn’t been acting weird, too. “And you can be weird. It’s fine. Refreshing, even.”

Rey lets out a soft ‘ _hmph’_ which only makes him smile more, so he bites the inside of his cheek and drums his fingers on his thigh, feeling the air in the cab quickly cooling against his cheeks and scolding himself for smiling so much. Sitting in damp clothes is a horrible idea, but he’s not about to go stripping with Rey sitting next to him. That thought is a dangerous, unwelcome one. He concentrates instead on the cold air chilling his face, replaying Rey’s words in his head.

Then a thought occurs to him.

“Why _have_ you been acting weird?” he asks.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” she says, clearing her throat. It forces his eyes open.

“No,” he presses. “Also, you should know you’re a horrible liar. What is it?”

The tension builds in a silent tug of war with Rey trying to avert her eyes and Kylo trying to keep her gaze on him, and when her cheeks start turning pink his mind provides perfect reenactments of the multiple times she’d blushed for no reason whatsoever.

He should let it go, _clearly_ , but the way she fidgets with the hem of her skirt is _very_ unlike the headstrong, immovable and opinionated Rey he’s used to. Even in the short amount of time he’s known her, he’s come to learn that much about who _Rey_ is, so Kylo leans in slightly, dipping his head until she’s forced to look at him instead of at her lap.

“I thought you promised to stop reminding me of the times I’ve made a fool of myself,” she balks. Well… he _had_ , but _she’d_ brought it up this time.

“Rey,” he warns, and she finally breaks, groaning in exasperation.

“So you really don’t remember?” she asks.

“Remember what?” he blinks, backtracking as far as he could in his mind. “ _Should_ I remember something?”

Rey stares at him for a moment, studying him so intently Kylo shifts in his chair, feeling a little like the kid who got called to the front of the class while Rey waits for him to do something, remember something, or perform a miracle. When it takes too long and it becomes obvious that he’s not about to pull rabbits out of thin air, Rey waves her hand, a habit of hers every time she tries to diffuse the situation, he thinks.

“Nevermind. It’s probably nothing, there’s been a lot happening all at once and it’s just confusing. It’s too much to process--”

_So you really don’t remember?_

“Wait,” he says, absentmindedly trying to stop her from waving it away with a twist of her hand as it were nothing but a cloud of smoke. She _had_ been acting weird, and though it certainly is true that there’s been a lot happening all at once, she’d done a one-eighty in a matter of days. “What do you mean?”

Rey sighs. “That. That’s what I mean,” she says, her tone of voice changing from apologetic and dismissive to one he’s far more familiar with. “You keep doing that.”

Kylo frowns, following her line of vision. Her eyes are fixed on his hand where it rests gently wrapped around her wrist, and sudden realization comes crashing down.

_Oh._

It had been his fault after all.

He drops her hand like a hot poker. Rey, however, continues to hold it in the air before shoving it in his face, Exhibit A for his perusal. She frowns, creating deep creases between her brows, and her cheeks turn three different shades of red.

“You keep doing that. You keep invading my bubble, and teasing me, and being nice,” She says, her nose pinching up in frustration as she then swings her arms around. Apparently she talks with her hands when she’s _really_ going. “And do you know just how confusing that is? Because let me tell you, it’s been a long almost two weeks, and then there’s you… how am I supposed to take being told that I deserve to be kissed properly and looked after? You, who were the last person I expected to be nice to me, suddenly are always there comforting me and looking out for me. I don’t even know what––”

Where his hearing had all but been tuned-in to Rey’s signal up until this point, suddenly he hears nothing but the sound of his pounding, racing heart. Rey’s words come to him as if passing through water, distorting and slowing down. He swallows, then swallows again, staring at her as she keeps talking, but he’s no longer listening.

“What did you say?” he asks. The rush of blood in his ears makes it difficult to _listen_ , but he does his best.  

“I said this whole trip was a stupid idea and now I have to call Finn and---”

“Not that. Before that. What did you say?” he pushes, his fingers itching to grab onto something. Anything. Had he heard her wrong? “What did you say I told you?”

Rey frowns. She had been too far into her own little rant, finally letting out everything she had wanted to say, and Kylo can see it clearly painted in her face when her eyes slowly start to widen. She had said something she hadn’t meant to say. Something she hadn’t _wanted_ to say. The dam had broken and everything had come spilling out, both the obvious and the secrets she had wanted to keep to herself.

Her mouth starts opening and closing, looking for words that aren’t coming, and the lump in Kylo’s throat starts to suffocate him.

_Oh no… no, no, no._

“Rey?” he presses, his whole body thrumming with apprehension, all of his fears flashing in front of his eyes as he recalls the last few days, as he recalls _himself_ going against years of personal training, of self-restraint, of _knowing_ his place and keeping it; of creating a deep chasm between him and other people, _especially women_ , and he’d broken that. Just like that, like a switch flipped off silently, Rey had made him forget more than just his troubles. She’d made him forget _everything._

Suddenly the car cab starts feeling a little too small, a bit too cramped, and entirely too warm.

Rey presses her lips together in a hard line and Kylo prepares himself to run for the Irish hills.

“You... told me I should be kissed properly and taken care of,” she says, visibly deflating in front of him after having spent what Kylo assumes is her well of courage. “You were feverish, and talking nonsense. Don’t worry about it. It’s just…”

The shoe he’d been so eagerly waiting to drop finally does, and it’s not what he’d expected. It’s not what he’d _wanted_.

“Is that all I did?”

He recalls the intimacy that surged every time he’d focus on her mouth, the phantom feeling of heat, of a spark whenever he touched her no matter how hard he tried _not to_. He recalls what he’d thought had been nothing but a vivid dream.

He’d been drawn to her; he just hadn’t noticed how much.

“What?”

“Did I say or do anything else?”

He sees it in his mind as his reality starts warping into a nightmare.

_“Does… it make you happy… duckling?” the words had fallen from him because this was a dream, and the real Rey would never stay in his dream so long. She had stuck around a very, very long time already._

_“Does what make me happy?” The girl in his dream had asked, her fingers gently carding through his hair, and though somewhere in his mind Kylo knows that this would never, ever happen, he nearly purrs into her hand, pushing his scalp into her palm, searching for warmth. It feels oddly like her hand belongs there, or at least, it should._

_But this is Rey, and she’s taken, and he barely knows her. Still, when he speaks again, eyes closing and cheek falling to rest on a curiously warm, soft shoulder, it’s not without a hint of jealousy. Jealousy that he doesn’t have what she has, what her_ boyfriend _has in her. Jealous that Katherine would never follow this far for him… hadn’t followed. Jealous that this young woman’s lips looked inviting, and they were not for him. Still, he talks._

_This is a dream. At least in this dream he could get answers._

_“How he kisses you,” Kylo asks, huffing hot air in and out. After a long moment, his dream Rey sighs._

_“I suppose.”_

_Well.. that doesn’t sound enthusiastic whatsoever. Kylo wonders how long this dream is going to last. She’d shown up in previous ones, but this one...this one felt real… this one was lasting a ridiculously long time. So he plays along. Why not… it’s_ his _dream. He’d teach her how she should be properly kissed._

 _“You don’t,” he says. No, she doesn’t enjoy how what’s his name kisses her… she sounds… resigned? It doesn’t make her happy. Real Rey probably enjoyed the hell out of her boyfriend’s kisses. That’s probably why she was following him halfway across the world. But dream Rey sounds dejected, so Kylo opens his eyes and looks down at her, and_ oh _, but she’s beautiful. “Here, let me teach you.”_

_Real Rey would probably slap the living daylights out of him. Dream Rey, however, only stares up at him, wide-eyed and stunning in the moonlight, and why is it so hot in here? Ah, but it’s a dream. Who the hell cares. He lowers his lips gently on top of Rey’s, a featherlight touch, and he forgets how kissing should be done. He’s tired, so tired._

_“Kylo…”_

_That jolts him into action. Kylo may not remember how to kiss in his dream, but his lips clearly do, engulfing the girl underneath him and pinning her close, groaning in the back of his throat as he feels the soft curves of her body, her chest pressed to his, only thin fabric separating them. His hands roam up and down her thigh, then up again, teasing under just under the edge of the fabric, and when Rey whimpers into his mouth he hungers like he’s never hungered. It’s a wet dream at best, a silly dream, but she opens up to him and he indulges. At least it’s only a dream. And he can’t remember the last time he’d craved affection this much._

_It’s a sad, pitiful reason. His own selfish reason, and he’s probably delusional even_ dreaming _about this, but… well. He’d probably forget it all in the morning. It might just be any woman… any woman wearing Rey’s face, if only because she’s been around him for so long now._

_Kylo teases her open, tugging and demanding entrance, growl after growl half-born in his throat as he demands and she gives. He teases her tongue into his own mouth, sucking at it gently, biting and nibbling and suckling at her lower lip, and kissing her like he hasn’t kissed anybody in a very long time. Her legs tangle up around him, knees drawing up to his waist, and he nearly grinds into her when she whines, but even here Kylo knows his boundaries. He finally pulls away, watching through hooded eyes as her breath and his mist between them._

_He would go to hell for such a dream, he’s sure of that…_

_What would it be like in real, waking life?_

_Are dreams supposed to last this long?_

_“There. Kissed properly,” he chuckles, a little too proud of himself when she pants at him like she wants more. He could be proud of that, even in his delirium. “Funny, you don’t usually stay this long.”_

“Rey?” he asks, nostrils flaring while he tries to keep his head about him.

Her lips part with a soft, fragile _oh_ , a budding flower opening up, pink and inviting and _warm_ , and Kylo can’t imagine how he knows that they’re warm, or soft, or the way they should wrap around his lower lip –– or how he should know that the slip of her tongue he can see past her teeth is velvety, or that Rey hesitates when she kisses –– except perhaps that his _very_ worst fear might be coming true and Rey may just be about to confirm it for him. He forces himself to look up at her eyes, finding them wide and bright, and full of... realization; realization that he knows.

And she’s blushing.

 _Shit_.

“You were feverish, and you thought you were dreaming, and––”

“Oh my God,” he murmurs, immediately covering his face and rubbing at it, dragging his fingers down his cheeks until it almost hurts. “Please tell me I didn’t.”

“And it’s confusing.” Rey finishes, completely ignoring what he’d just said.

He’s got to get out of there. He’s got to get out of the warm, cramped cab filled with Rey and her breathing and her pink cheeks and soft lips. He has to get out and go and get gas, and maybe just walk off into the horizon and never show his face to her again, or throw himself in a ditch and die of embarrassment. How could he _do_ that?!

He thinks of every time she looked at him that way. Rey in a pale blue dress, smiling at him despite the pink tinge of her cheeks. Rey wrapped up in a giant blanket, avoiding his gaze and blushing. Rey sidestepping around him, tensing then relaxing only to tense up again, going red from her collarbone up. Rey, finally giving him a minute smile before he’d turned around, her eyes focusing on his mouth. _His_ mouth. Kylo, about to leave, thinking what a pity it is that it had been a dream before he could come back to his senses and _tell his brain to shut the hell up_ , turning on his heel and leaving before he could say or do anything stupid.

_No fucking wonder._

He turns around and slams his forehead on the steering wheel even as Rey tries to stop him from doing so. It only makes him feel worse.

“You were sick! It meant nothing,” she says, leaning over and pulling him away from the wheel by pressing her hand to his forehead and pushing him back. Before she can say anything else, though, Kylo utters his apologies over and over as he pushes the door open and steps of the car.

Mercifully, it’s stopped raining. Maybe it rained enough, or maybe he could find a pit to pour his mortification into and drown himself in it. He has enough sense to check his pocket for his phone and wallet, grabbing the keys off the ignition before promising he’d go find gas and closing the door, walking away as fast as his long legs can carry him. Maybe he should just set himself on fire once he got his hands on a full gas can. Anything other than having to face her again. 

_Christ, what have I done?_

______________________

**5:15PM**

She’s been following him for ten minutes now, or maybe it’s been longer than that. He can’t tell. He can’t tell because she’s following him and Kylo can’t even make himself look back at her, nevermind his intense desire to fall to his knees in front of her and beg for forgiveness. He hates himself for not doing so. Running from his problems had always been the story of his life.

A moral duty. A moral duty to make sure this girl didn’t fall into the wrong hands. So how _could_ he _do that?_

Rey had all but fallen out of the car in her haste to follow, shouting at him to wait up while Kylo self-flagellated over his own stupidity, fever be damned. Then the calling had stopped, but he could still hear her following. She takes two steps for every one of his.

_Good fucking job, Kylo. Way to go, kissing the girl with trust issues._

The longer he thinks about it the more the details come into sharp focus, the bits and pieces he’d thought had only been but a vivid dream suddenly materializing in the front of his brain with unusual clarity. How -- How could he have done that?

It takes all mental power he has to make his legs stop moving, to turn around to face her instead of sprinting away.

He’s got to apologize.

Rey crashes into him, making him nearly jump. He hadn’t even noticed when she’d caught up, too deep in his own frantic thoughts, so he corrects by taking two steps back.

_She hates me. She probably hates me._

One week, one delirious kiss and too much time spent alone in a too small car cab and Kylo’s self-composure has all but crumbled, leaving him a neurotic mess.

“I don’t hate you.”

“What?”

“You said that out loud,” Rey says. The stupid look on his face must be amusing because Rey smiles. It’s a tentative, fragile smile, but one nonetheless.

“And now I’m going insane,” Kylo says, finally turning his back towards her and staring at the skies the same way Rey had when she’d finally had it with her misfortune at Martin’s train stop. He starts walking again, suddenly losing his bravado, about to take a _very_ long step when Rey yanks him back by the sleeve of his leather jacket.

“Stop,” she orders and his body halts. For a moment he wonders how such a small person could command such presence. “Stop running.”

Well, if he can’t run then maybe he can plead. Kylo tilts his head towards the skies and sends up a silent prayer for forgiveness, just in case there’s truly someone watching, before turning around to face her.

“Rey…” he starts, ready to actually drop on his knees. “I’m––”

“No.” Rey says, frowning and holding up a finger to silence him, and his memory fills in the blanks.

A whiff of rain and floral shampoo and Rey dressed in a drenched coral dress, scowling up at him and telling him to take a hike even while he shields her from the rain, but this time he has no smartass remarks with which to continue. He _should_ take a hike. One to the pits of hell, probably, but Rey’s got him glued to the ground where he stands with a stern look.

“You didn’t let me finish. Look, I have a thousand things to worry about right now and I don’t want to make this one of them.  I decided to stay, so how about we just…” she looks around, asking for help from the wet blades of grass. “How about we discuss this _after_ these three weeks are done? I need to stay here. For Finn. I can’t do that if you run away from me. You were delirious and talking nonsense. That’s all there is to it.”

That last bit is the slap to the face he needed, the cold bucket of ice water on the head. How could he have made it about himself? That’s right. This is isn’t about him. This is about _Finn_.

There’s so much he wants to say. So much he _needs_ to say. So much he should apologize for. He’d failed as a lawyer and as a man and as a human being, who cares if he had a fever at the time. Rey sways where she stands, the wind trying to blow her away, and Kylo groans internally. He’d promised himself to protect her and somehow he’d been the one to totally invade her personal space. Listening to her talk as if nothing had happened makes him itch. She must either be  _really_ desperate or a very good actress. Possibly both. 

“I––” he starts.

“Alright?” she cuts him off, refusing to let him back out and hide like a coward. “ _Please._ I need your help.”

It’s her pleading tone that does it. Somewhere in his heart, his heartstrings go up in flames.

That’s right. That’s the only reason she’s running towards him instead of away from him. His chest tightens, then loosens up, and Kylo Ren finally breathes for the first time in a long while. While he’d been too busy agonizing about his actions he’d completely forgotten her true motives. What he felt didn’t quite matter right now. It _shouldn’t_ matter. She’d been the one on the receiving end.

Talk about putting it into perspective.

How far was she willing to go? How far was _he_ willing to do the same?

Forget about moral obligation. This woman would be the end of him, and now he _owes_ her.

By now darkness is descending, the rain having stopped just long enough to give them a glimpse of twilight before the skies hid again behind the clouds, and Kylo has no idea how much longer they’d have to walk, but all he can focus now on is Rey.

“I-- Of course.” He pulls himself together long enough to finally look at her without his pulse racing. She’s shivering.

 _Helpless little duck––_ Kylo shakes his head. No. He’s got to stop that.

He removes his leather jacket and drapes it over her before she can say a word, hoping that the small gesture can say the things he can’t.

It was just one kiss. _One_ kiss. He could forget about one kiss. It’s not like he hadn’t kissed her before, at dinner time. Okay, two kisses. He could forget about two kisses.

And a white iron bench, and her weight on his lap, and…

“Kylo?” Rey calls, startling him back to reality. It hurts that his name sounds so sweet on her tongue.

_I really am going insane._

When had he started noticing? It doesn’t matter. He _would_ forget about it, for her sake.

“Hm? Oh,” he clears his throat, then extends his arm out for her to walk forward. “I… let’s go find the gas station.”

Finn.

This is all for Finn.

 _I don’t even know this man and my life has started to revolve around him_.

______________________

**6:02PM**

They should have long ago been at Luke’s pub, but that’s not how things happen in Kylo’s life.

No, instead Kylo and Rey continue walking ahead, squinting into the distance, looking for any sign of life in the growing darkness for what feels like millenia. Rey’s bundled herself into his jacket, and the only saving grace to this whole walking situation is that walking has kept him warm.

“I’m sorry about… your bubble.” Kylo says after the silence starts eating at him.

Rey sighs.

“You apologize too much,” she says, trying and failing to imitate the deep timbre of his voice. “And I didn’t say it was unpleasant.”

Kylo stares ahead so that he doesn’t gape at her, shoving his hands into his pockets as deep as they can go, feeling like an awkward teenager and choosing to be speechless rather than further making a fool of himself. That only lasts so long, though. Staying silent proves to be impossible.

“Will you let me make it up to you somehow, then?” he asks.

Rey smiles up at him.

“Sure. Let’s start with food.”

______________________

**7:09PM**

At long last, they see the light at the end of the tunnel. _Literally_. The bright white lights of a gas station in the dark distance drags a collective sigh of relief out of them both as they pick up their pace and nearly run for the sanctum that is a dry, warm space with gas, food, and a WiFi signal.

When they finally reach it, Rey lets out a happy squeak as she rushes towards the candy bar aisle, leaving Kylo to go to the counter to buy a couple of gas cans. While the cashier checks his ID and his card, Kylo dares look at his phone, the events of the last few hours bringing to the forefront of his mind that he’d been avoiding it. He turns it on.

Immediately it starts going off the charts with missed calls and messages.

_Well, they’re certainly persistent._

Rey comes around with an armful of junk food, grabbing two bananas and two apples from the basket by the counter and dropping them on top of the pile while staring at him defiantly after he arches an eyebrow at her selection. He shakes his head, shoving his phone in his pocket and letting the notifications continue pinging, unheeded.

Both Rey and the cashier stare at him oddly as it goes off, but Kylo simply grabs the gas cans once he’s offered, then turns to Rey.

“Wait here, will you?” he asks, stepping outside and inhaling cold air before Rey can disagree.

What a brilliant mess he’s made for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh. Hehe... heeeh *wheezes* 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! in true Kylo Ren and Rey Jakken form, a trip that should have taken two hours has turned into its own little Oddessy. They keep praying and the universe keeps laughing in their face. Kylo, as always, is a little extra with his remorse. #sorrynotsorry
> 
> This whole story is just a series of curse words and dropped F and S bombs. Still not sorry. 
> 
> New things: 
> 
> 1\. The lovely **ReyloRobyn2011** [has made us a lovely aesthetic!](https://thelucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/154448962290/reylorobyn2011-i-made-this-for-thelucidlucy-for) Go check it.


	21. Do Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey tries to make a point... and what a point it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 chapters in less than a full week. WE'RE ON FIRE!  
> Thank you all for the support as always, you beautiful human beings, you. I'm glad you've all enjoyed it so far.  
> I was planning on waiting after the RO hype died down a bit by next week but then I saw the movie and I needed to find a way to soothe my soul, so you guys get a 3rd chapter (probably the last one for a little bit). Enjoy it!

**7:13PM**

The bell above the door chimes a tinny chirp as it opens and closes shut, plastic noise filling the air while the cashier rings up bag after bag of chips, but her attention is on Kylo, watching him hoist the two bright-red empty gas cans like business briefcases and quietly going about filling them up. Rey breathes in slowly, finally having enough space to put her thoughts in a semblance of order, squinting past the condensation clinging to the glass and the thin fog left over from the rain that threatens to dim her view of him.

Kylo stands hunched in on himself, his massive arms crossed in front of him like a shield against the world and damp hair obscuring his expression under wild waves, his outline reflected on the wet pavement as if he were standing on a mirror.

It’s a pity, she thinks, her mind trying to puzzle his features together as best as she can, though she doesn’t have to. He’d worn the same expression throughout the whole walk to the gas station: a far off look in his eyes and a displeased downturn to his lips.

Rey sighs, pushing her hair behind her left ear with trembling fingers and letting out her lungful of air, turning to the cashier when he tells her the total.

“That’ll be sixty for the gas, and fifteen for the snacks,” the young man says, grabbing Kylo’s card from the counter where he’d left it. Rey nods, pursing her lips and stomping on her guilt that once again it’s Kylo who’s paying for things, but she lets the cashier do his job, her eyes once again magnetically gravitating towards the source of her unease.

She might be a horrible liar, but perhaps this time she pulled this one off.

She takes the offered card and their new purchased goods and opens the door. It chimes a tinny _ding-ding_ again then closes behind her. Rey remains standing where she is, watching Kylo roll what she assumes is a pebble back and forth under the heel of his boot, looking a little bit like he’s stepped out of a different world in the quickly thickening fog. She’s not fond of lying, and hurting his feelings was the last thing she’d wanted to do.

A pity indeed, but her decision remains unchanged. Choosing to act as if nothing happened was just what she had to do, so she’d do it. She pastes on a small smile and steps away from the door, the soles of her shoes clicking on the pavement as she approaches. Kylo doesn’t look up.

“Here is your card,” she says, braving a look at his face. Kylo nods, putting out his hand for her to give him his card and quietly stashing it in his wallet, though he barely looks up at her as he does it. Rey quells her disappointment by opening up her bag of junk food and looking in it.

“Is there anything you'd like in specific?” She asks. Kylo shakes his head, crouching over the now full cans of gasoline, screwing on the lids.

“Whatever you don't have is fine," he replies gruffly.

Then his phone starts ringing in his pocket. Rey arches an eyebrow at it but Kylo ignores it, letting it ring incessantly. He doesn’t look like he wants to talk about it, much less anything at all, so she stays silent and offers an open hand for one of the gas cans. He looks at it, then up at her, and it’s the first time he’s actually looked her in the eye since she’d begged him for help, so she gifts him a smile. Kylo only tilts his head sideways.

“You worry about that,” he says, lifting his chin in the direction of their bag of food. “I’ve got these. Shall we?”

He leaves no room for argument.

Rey nibbles on her lower lip but nods, walking side by side with him as they take off from the safety of the flourescent lit gas station towards the foggy darkness, following the road back the same way they’d come. Rey pulls his jacket closer about her against the chill. It’s not bad, but after the rain it’s a damp chill that clings to her legs nonetheless. They should have _long_ ago been at their destination, but of course things never went right where Rey, Ireland, and Kylo Ren were concerned, so by now Rey simply lets it roll off her shoulders. They’ll get there… eventually.

Kylo’s phone once again goes off and once again is resolutely ignored. She can’t help herself, she looks at his pocket then up at him, but Kylo’s eyes are decidedly set ahead.

_What exactly are you running from? How bad was it?_

It’s obvious he was the one hurt, or he would be jumping for a chance to open up that phone and talk to whomever was on the other line. Rey can’t ask, though. She doesn’t have the right to when just but an hour or so ago she’d hurt him as well. She’d noticed the dejected slump Kylo’s shoulders when she’d repeatedly emphasized that his kiss, his words to her, had been nothing but nonsense brought on by a fever and that they held no weight. She’d clung to that, repeating it again and again to convince both him and herself, because it was infinitely easier than opening herself up to the questioning that would follow otherwise, from both Kylo and her own mind. It was too much to process, too quickly, She’s here to see Finn, and Kylo had decided to be kind to a stranger, but that would be all there is to that. She would go so far as to think of Kylo as a friend, even if it’s only been such a short time, but the kiss could _not_ be made to mean anything.

Yet it’s as though her body has other ideas where said kiss is concerned. She hadn’t _lied_ when she’d told him it hadn’t been unpleasant. It had been her last ditch effort to try and dampen the blow, not that it helped any, but she hadn’t _lied_. Not about that part. Maybe this would finally dissipate the awkwardness that had clung to their every interaction since that day.

Rey steals a glance in Kylo’s direction.

“What?” he asks, startling her. She didn’t think he’d noticed. Rey takes a small step aside, putting a bit of necessary distance between them.

“Ah— nothing. Just, you’re unusually quiet…”

Kylo lets out a big puff of air. It materializes in front of him and disappears. It’s hard to pick out his features in the foggy dimness… or anything else, for that matter. Rey digs in her dress’s pocket for her phone and turns on the flashlight, illuminating the road ahead. That helps.

“Just thinking, that’s all,” Kylo says. “Thanks for the light.”

Rey nods, “I figured we needed a bit of light. Are you okay? Can I carry one of those?”

Kylo shakes his head, then stops. Rey walks ahead a few steps ahead before realizing it, then backtracks and turns around to face him, pointing the flashlight up and away from them both so she can see him without blinding him.

“What?”

“I’m fine,” he says, “Just…”

“Jut what?” she asks.

Kylo sighs, tilting his head up to the sky. It’s clearing up now, stars slowly peeking in from under the darkness on an endless expanse of night sky. Rey studies the tiny moles on his neck, sure that they must match the constellations above their heads, watches his breath fogging above him, a crown that disappears before it’s even fully formed, and waits for him to face her again. When he looks back down at her, eyes dark and haunting, it’s with an odd mixture of sadness and resignation.

He looks tired, and younger than his years, and like he’s drowning in his own remorse.

“Rey. I very clearly remember your reaction in the bathtub. Being sick isn’t an excuse, alright? It shouldn’t be, and you seem awfully calm with this, which only makes me worry further. I _know_ what it’s like to be on the receiving end, I built my life around it. It’s not pleasant. You didn’t ask for this, and I hate that I’m the one responsible for it. So I need you to say something. To do something. To be angry at me, or anything that might give me a clue into how you feel so I can then _fix it,_ or at least atone for it.”

Rey tilts her head, studying him. In the darkness, by themselves on a road that appears to come from nowhere and lead to nowhere, the hills and fields of Ireland feel infinite, the horizon endless, and they the only two beings on the planet under a starry sky.

“You need me to do something,” she repeats. Kylo nods, big puffs of air escaping from his mouth and misting in front of him, his relief at her understanding literally materialized in front of her. Rey tilts her head the other way, Kylo’s eyes following her every move.

She needs to do something.

Rey thinks back to the gas station, to her decision to prove to him that his kiss had meant _nothing_ , but how can she do that when he’s staring at her with big sad eyes and a pouty downturn to his lips?

 _Lie_.

The thought comes to her immediately. Rey swallows, letting her facial features relax. She’s a horrible liar and even Kylo knows this. Kylo stands frozen before her, waiting patiently. He’s not breathing. She knows because no air turns to smoke in front of him. He’s holding it in and waiting, and Rey almost wants to smile.

It’s easy to make up her mind when it feels like she’s currently standing inside a glass bubble, fragile and beautiful, in a place that isn’t on planet Earth; at least not her version of Earth, with dirty crowded streets and the constant struggle to stay afloat. It’s easy when she’s standing in semi-darkness and whispered secrets fill the air, floating gently on the breeze only to be swept away.

The best lie would be the most unexpected one. Her best lie would be to compound on the previous one. Rey finally nods. This lie would be her secret, and it would be swept away along with the others.

“Okay, put down the gas cans.”

“What?” Kylo asks, and she can see a bit of the gold flecks in his eyes as they widen with confusion.

“Put them down.”

Kylo tenses — waiting for a slap, or to get punched? — But does as commanded, slowly bending down at the waist and setting the cans of gas at either side of him. Then he straightens and quietly stands with his hands placidly at his sides. She could do _anything_ to him right now, and he’d probably take it. What she’s about to do is exactly the opposite of what he expects, the opposite of what she thought she’d _ever_ be doing, but Kylo has a very keen sense of her moods, and despite her promises that she’s fine, that his touch in that bed had meant nothing, he’s always a little too close to the truth. So she chooses to push him further away from it. Rey crouches and places her plastic bag and her phone face down on the road to the side, the flashlight facing the skies and illuminating a small circle around them, then she stands up and takes a step towards Kylo.

Every step forward is a denial of years’ worth of conditioned behavior towards strangers, _especially_ around men; years of knowing her place and keeping it, of purposely avoiding physical contact, of avoiding people’s gazes and making herself smaller. Instead of making herself small, Rey looks Kylo in the eye and squares her shoulders proudly. Every step is a fight against her usual instincts, but she takes them nonetheless. Surprisingly, it’s not hard. She finds herself trusting him, no matter how irrational her trust is, but what about this whole journey had been rational up until now?

Kylo stares, but he doesn’t move, which only makes it easier. She takes another step, and another, and even when she inevitably invades his personal space, his breathing bubble, Kylo remains statue still. Would this be cheating on Finn? No, she’s making a point.

 _It means nothing_.

The final step forward brings her face to face with him, or…really… face to collarbone. Rey looks up, bringing Kylo’s pale features into sharp focus. She lifts her arms slowly and feels him turn to rock under her, muscles quivering with their strung-up tension and the effort of staying still when she wraps her arms around his neck and gets up on tiptoe.

“Rey—“ he whispers, stuttering on the last consonant with a hitched up inhale that she then silences when her lips connect with his.

 _Lie._ _Lie like you’ve never lied before._

So she does. Rey nips at his lower lip, refusing to hesitate. She would give as good as she got. He tries to breathe again, to pull in air, to say something, so she swallows that too, knowing he’s about to complain even as his lids lower slowly and fall closed. Rey closes her eyes and sighs into him, nibbling on his lips until he finally gives in and allows her entrance, and she tries her best to remember how his lips had moved and imitates it.

It’s probably not as expertly executed as his when Rey lets her tongue slip past his teeth and explores, tasting sweetness and cold air in his mouth, gently licking at his lower lip, but she feels his massive chest tense and relax, quiver and shake against her own when she absentmindedly digs her fingers into his hair and pulls him closer towards her, forcing him to slightly stoop over.

Even then she’s on her tiptoes, and when her legs start to shake only then do Kylo’s hands come up from his sides, settling on her waist to stabilize her, barely a light-feather touch, as if he’s scared that doing this would break her.

She tilts her head, smiling when he sighs against her mouth, muffling her name on his tongue by dragging it out of him and sucking on the tip of it, and only when Kylo himself finally lets out an anguished whine does she slowly pull herself away. When she opens her eyes to look at him, he looks wild.

His lips are bruised, his cheeks are redder than she’s ever seen them, and his eyes have lost all focus. He blinks slowly, and she waits until he can find recognition in her face when his gaze finally lands on her, then she smiles and drops her arms, stepping away, putting an end to the best lie she’s ever told.

“See? Nothing. I’m not screaming, I’m not panicking, I’m not crying. Now we’re even and you can stop agonizing about it. You didn’t _break_ me, Kylo. I don’t know why, okay? But I’m fine.”

She’s burning up inside, but that means nothing.

Her head’s swimming a little, but that means nothing.

She’s told her lie. She’s made her point. It’s just lips touching, and it doesn’t mean her world would explode because of it, Rey reminds herself. It’s not like this is the first time. 

“So now can we go back to normal and put this behind us? You’re about to become my boss, after all, and _that_ would be awkward. I’m not a fragile piece of glass, so stop trying to treat me like one. Okay?” she presses when Kylo does nothing but stare dumbly at her, and though Rey thinks she sees a flash of pain, it’s quickly smothered and replaced by incredulity. His mouth opens and shuts, and Rey smiles. This time _he’s_ the one lost for words. She’s effectively shut him up.

Well, any means to her desired end.

Before Kylo can say anything, Rey crouches and grabs her bag and phone, then points to the gas cans.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Kylo blinks, suddenly realizing where he is and what he’s supposed to be doing. He grabs the gas cans. Rey doesn’t wait, turning around and continuing down the road while digging in their bag of food and pulling out an apple. She spends the rest of her walk eating. It keeps her from having to talk.

 

______________________

 

**9:02PM**

 

Two hours later finds them back in front of the camaro. Thankfully nobody’s stolen it (though who would, out here in the middle of nowhere with an empty tank?), there are no signs of a break-in by an animal or otherwise, and Rey’s feet _ache_. Kylo hasn’t said a single word since she’d kissed him, only stealing half-glances in her direction every once in a while. Every time she’d caught him, she’d offer him food, and he’s quickly shake his head and look ahead. Now he’s filling the tank, so Rey lets herself into the car again and plops into her seat with a groan, looking at the sky and sending up a silent prayer.

 _Please let this be it for tonight. It’s been a rough day, okay? So can you just… I don’t know… do a girl a solid and_ not _rain on our proverbial parade for the rest of the night?_

The driver’s door opens and Kylo drops into his seat, slamming the door shut.

Rey looks at him, arching an eyebrow, while Kylo places one hand on the wheel, one on the shift, and looks dead ahead.

“Okay,” he says.

“What?”

“It was an… unfortunate event.” Kylo says, his voice a soft murmur that tells her he doesn’t quite believe his own words, or the fact that he’s even uttering them. “It meant nothing, and you’re okay. You _are_ okay, right? That’s how you want me to think about all this. That’s what you want, right?”

Rey grins, relief washing through her, “Yes.”

Kylo hesitates for a moment, looking at her closely and pursing his lips in thought. He clearly can’t let it go, Rey thinks, hating herself for the upteenth time that she was so quick to open her big mouth and complicate matters for both herself and him. But then Kylo nods to himself, turning the key in the ignition.

“Okay.”

The car pulls off from the curb and Rey rolls down the window, letting in the cool air and sighing as Kylo drives forward. It’s not great progress, but it’s progress. All she needs to do is convince him that this was only a minor blip on the radar so that she can weather out the next three weeks. That’s all she needs, she promises herself, sticking her hand out the window and feeling the cold air on her fingertips. fifteen minutes later they’re driving by the gas station it took them two hours to reach on foot, then past it, and Rey sighs. She needs to figure out how to make things less awkward ASAP. Worrying both about Kylo _and_ Finn would quickly drive her batty.

She turns to Kylo.

“So, do I have to call you _boss_ from now on?”

Kylo snorts.

“Please don’t.”

 

______________________

 

**11:15PM**

 

The air gets lighter the closer they get to thir destination as Kylo drives straight for his uncle’s Pub, past the _Welcome to Dingle_ sign and the sleepy houses, nothing but a few streetlights lighting their way. It’s _barely_ a town. Rey keeps her eyes peeled nonetheless, looking around at what will become her habitat for the next three weeks. 

Everything is green, and quaint, and made of brick and red shingles, and Rey grins to herself.

“It looks plucked out of a fairytale,” she says. Kylo chuckles, the first time he’s made a sound in hours.

“If you say so,” he replies, slowly turning a left corner going at five miles an hour, allowing her a perfect little tour in the middle of the night. “It’s more of a sleepy village where time slows and gossip grows fast.”

Rey turns to him.

“You’ve been here often?” she asks, suddenly interested in what he has to say. She knows so little of him that hearing even this small bit piques her curiosity, immediately sparking her imagination.

“As a child,” he admits, nodding towards a small park and what Rey assumes is a river beyond it, the sounds of gurgling floating to her. “I used to spend quite a lot of time there.”

Rey memorizes the location, nodding as Kylo takes yet another turn. It’s late. Everybody’s asleep. The only sounds that she can hear are those of random dogs barking at their foreign car for daring to intrude on their turf, and the sound of gravel beneath the camaro’s wheels as it slows down. Rey turns around to look out of Kylo’s window as he lowers his window further and looks out.

Their car has stopped in front of a building with a small paved front yard, flower pots sitting askew and empty, a few filled with dirt and dry, dead plants, and though the cheery sign above the door informs the passerby that they have arrived at Ahch-to’s Pub, Bed and Breakfast, there are no lights on or welcoming mat, and that’s because the windows and front door are all boarded up, and the pub sign is tilting at a weird angle, probably loose on one of its hinges. The place hasn’t seen the shadow of a single soul in a while.

Rey looks at Kylo.

“Well…” she says, because there’s nothing else to say. “That’s not what I was expecting.”

Kylo turns disbelieving eyes back on her that scream ‘ _you think?’_ before he opens the door and steps out, letting it fall closed with a click. Rey jumps out the car and follows, the only sounds floating in the air that of her shoes and Kylo’s boots crunching on gravel as they walk away from their car, past the paved courtyard, all the way to the door to find a note stuck between the boards. Kylo pulls it out, and Rey immediately turns on the flashlight on her phone again, looking over his arm at the contents of the piece of paper.

_Hi Ben,_

_I’m so glad you called and decided to come over._

_The keys are in your favorite spot, and I hope you enjoy it. It hasn’t seen use in a while, so you might need to do some work, make it yours. It_ is _yours. I won’t be returning, you see? I’m gone to the mountains. Less people._

_Welcome!_

_Love,_

_Uncle Luke_

_P.s: call your mother, will you? She keeps leaving messages asking about why you haven’t arrived yet. I figured you were taking your time, so I left early._

The note is signed with the date from two days ago. Kylo groans, immediately moving to rub his hand through his hair. Rey blinks.

“Ben?” she asks.

_Who the heck is Ben?_

Kylo gives her a rueful smile, “It’s a long story.” Then he points at her phone. “Come with me.”

Rey follows past the empty, tilted flower pots and the shrubs that look like they haven’t been trimmed in months, all the way to an iron gate that needs a serious coat of paint or two, a heavy chain and a giant iron bolt keeping it closed.

“Come on,” Kylo urges, putting his hands out towards her, and with a little maneuvering and much awkward cursing from Rey as she accidentally stabs her hand on one of the iron spikes, he hoists her up over the fence then jumps it himself. She falls in step behind him, stepping on grass that’s been saturated with water as she’s led around the dark corner, past a brick half-wall and towards another yard. This one’s much larger, sprawling and green, one giant oak tree dominating most of the open sky. The kind of yard that one would host parties in. He steps over a bunch of rocks that may or may not have been the beginnings of an unfinished fire pit and approaches a much smaller, wooden door hidden behind overgrown brambly branches. He runs his fingers over the door frame. Nothing.

Rey frowns. “Not there?” Kylo shakes his head then tilts it.

“ _My favorite spot_ …” he murmurs to himself, turning then to look at the giant oak tree and quickly crossing the yard. Rey picks up the pace, following after him and watching as he pushes his fingers into a small crook at the base of the tree.

“I used to climb this tree every day as a child, and hide sweets in this little nook. Only uncle Luke ever knew about it,” he explains, twisting his fingers inside. His hand is too big for it, but he keeps going until she hears the sound of keys. “Aha!”

He pulls out a key fob with two keys on it, presumably for the two doors, then gets up and brushes his now wet knees, pointing towards the entrance.

A few minutes later the creaky door opens and Kylo flips the light switch.

Nothing.

“Home sweet home,” Rey says, earning herself a grumpy glare.

Kylo lets out a resigned sigh, deep chested and exhausted, “Well… it could be worse.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that just happened.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your support and all of your comments. I love each and every one of them and enjoy responding to them! I'm glad you're all loving this story as much as you are. 
> 
> Also, a preemptive MASSIVE THANK YOU! For the 1k kudos we're about to hit and the over 1200 comments ;-; I love youuu~


	22. Candles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this chapter <3 thank you a billion to everyone who commented the last chapter! It's seriously what keeps me going ;-; you guys are beautiful and I love you.

Rey walks in after shooting him a small glance, pointing her phone’s light up ahead to light their way. Kylo follows quietly behind, listening to the sound of her shoes clicking on the wooden floors and following the halo of her silhouette in the semi-darkness, trying to avoid running into anything. They’d entered through the kitchen, the counters and kitchen island covered in a thin layer of dust, a tell-tale sign of disuse that makes him die a little inside as Rey leads them past the kitchen door and towards the main hall.

He chews on his lower lip nervously, his fingers twitching at his side as he hunches himself over to avoid knocking his head on the doorframe, listening to Rey’s soft little gasp at the open space. With no tables or chairs, it resembles more of a ballroom than a pub floor, dark wood gleaming under the few rays of moonlight coming in through the boarded up windows. He takes his eyes off her for a moment and looks around, squinting a bit before digging out his own phone and turning on the flashlight. It had been a long time since he’d stepped foot in this place.

Rey turns around and gives him a half smile as she steps up close, her bag of junk food making crinkling noises every time her arm moves. When he says nothing, she holds it up to his eye level to break the silence.

“Want to eat?”

Kylo hums. He doesn’t have an appetite. He hadn’t had one for hours now, and she’s standing too close, but food might actually be a good way to keep it from getting awkward — well, more awkward than it’s been, for him at least — so he nods.

“Give me a second, I’ll go… candle hunting,” he says while clearing his throat, the light of their combined phone lights pointing towards the ceiling reminding him a little too much of a similar lighting situation only a few hours ago. “Luke always kept candles around.”

He turns around towards the kitchen while listening to Rey’s shoes clacking as they move away, probably to go find somewhere to sit, and as soon as he enters the kitchen Kylo Ren has a silent breakdown.

She’s a girl. She’s just a girl. It was just a kiss. _She_ told him not to worry about it, had gone far out of her way to prove her point to him: she’s not made of glass, she won’t break. Somewhere in his brain, Kylo’s mind provides a new mantra: _At least she’s not panicking. At least she’s comfortable enough to let down her walls, and you haven’t broken her. At least this is your only problem now, that and a pub with no electricity, heat, or water_ — he checks, turning the water tap and being rewarded with empty air, the pipes deadly silent — _and she only kissed you._

Maybe he’s the one breaking.

Kylo groans internally and starts slamming his forehead against the kitchen island counter, perhaps a little harder than he’d meant to, the sound bouncing. _Beat it into your brain, man._ It might be the only thing that works.

At the noise, Rey walks in and Kylo jolts up, ramrod straight when he turns to look at Rey, thankful for the semi-darkness.

“What was that?” she asks.

Kylo blinks.

“Uhm… the pipes,” he replies lamely, turning around and quickly opening up cupboards and drawers.

Right. Candles.

Rey leans against the kitchen counter while he digs through empty cupboards, the only things Luke deemed worthy of leaving behind a few six packs of Irish beer and some paper plates, finally finding the candles stashed all the way to the very back underneath the sink. Rey walks up behind him, legs on either side of him as she stretches up over his head to grab the beer and the paper plates, her other hand supporting her on the counter in front of him, and Kylo’s heart tries to hammer its way out of his chest. He’s sure she feels it against her knees, through his shirt as it attempts to escape from behind his ribs—

“Hey, these might work!” she says, stepping back, entirely unaware of his response. Why did she have to always be _so_ close, and _why_ is he even responding this way? She might not find him threatening whatsoever, but she’s certainly starting to threaten _his_ sanity. Kylo swallows repeatedly, trying not to rock back on his heels and fall on his ass. Taking her under his wing might have ended up being detrimental to his mental health, after all.

When he stands and turns around to face her, however, his face betrays nothing. Years of training himself to conceal his thoughts and emotions have come in handy this time, and he’s clinging to every shred of self-composure he can muster. Rey, unaware to what her proximity has started doing to him, lifts up the beer and grins.

“Junk food and warm—“ she stops, looking at the label on the box, checking for something, “—thankfully not expired beer! Dinner of champions.”

Kylo grunts out what he hopes comes off as agreement as he snatches the paper plates from her hands and walks back into the open pub floor. Rey had left the bags against a wall under the only window with moonlight filtering through the wooden planks boarding up the view. Kylo sets a couple of plates on the window sill, and on the floor, then arranges candles burnt down to various lengths on them haphazardly, lighting them one by one with the cigarette lighter he’d found next to the candles. By the time he’s done, one-third of the room is bathed in candlelight reflecting off the wooden floors, and Rey’s plopped herself down on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. She looks up at him expectantly, then offers him a bottle of beer.

Despite his hunger (his last meal having been that morning), Kylo pinches his nose. It elicits a small, mildly amused chuckle from Rey.

“Don’t turn up your nose at food, Mr. Moneybags,” she chastises while making a grab for a bag of BBQ chips. “It’s not a very gracious thing to do, even if it’s warm beer.”

Kylo raises an eyebrow, forgetting for a second his twitchy discomfort as he grabs the proffered bottle, dropping next to her and twisting off the cap. Rey tears into her bag of chips, immediately shoving some into her mouth. So unladylike.

“I take it you don’t like to waste food,” he says, half a question, half a statement. Rey nods through full cheeks. He sighs to himself, then clinks his bottle with the one Rey has managed to open up for herself. “Well then, cheers.”

The next few minutes are spent in silence except for the crunch of Rey’s chips and the apple Kylo managed to salvage from the plastic bag, broken by the gulps of awful warm beer to wash it down. The room is cold, and they have no electricity, or water, or heat, but at least they’re not sitting in the dark, and they have a semblance of a meal. _Silver linings, Kylo. It could be worse._

Then his phone vibrates, and Rey steals a glance his way. He hadn’t missed any of the glances she’d been trying to sneak in every time it went off, but he can hardly bother getting his phone out to look at it. He’d set an exemplary record of ignoring it up until now. Kylo bites into his apple, and finally Rey breaks.

“Aren’t you going to answer that? What if it’s something important?”

If it were an emergency from his parents, his ringtone would let him know. Kylo shrugs. Nothing felt more important than being here with—

 _Wait._ He stops his brain from finishing that sentence.

“I assure you it’s not,” he replies after swallowing and taking another gulp of warm beer. At least it’s not stale.

Rey’s lips stiffen, but she drops it and looks down at her bag of chips, digging into it quietly. It takes a moment before her words reach him in a murmur. She’s genuinely curious, he thinks.

“Why _haven’t_ you answered it? What if she wants to make up?” Rey says, trying to pick a big-enough chip to munch on.

Kylo leans his head back against the wall and sighs, then turns his head to look at her. She looks lovely in candlelight, in his jacket, not that he’d admit that to her or himself. Kylo licks the inside of his teeth, considering his answer.

“Why haven’t you called Finn?” he looks back at his apple as he speaks, unwilling to see the expression on her face.

Rey lets out a little huff of air, an unamused half laugh, “Touché.”

Kylo hums, polishing off the rest of his apple then downing the rest of his beer. What a horrible dinner.

_It could be worse._

He looks at her from the corner of his eye and smiles to himself at the way she pushes her chips around, at the way she crosses and uncrosses her ankles, probably to create friction, to keep her bared legs warm. He hasn’t talked about this to anybody, but this girl had probably never spoken of _her_ issues with anybody (other than a therapist, much like he has, he’s sure), and he owed her a semblance of an explanation at least. Kylo breathes in deep, using the air filtering into his lungs as energy to power up his vocal chords.

“I am sure it’s her,” he begins, twirling the last half swallow of beer in the bottom of his bottle in circular motions, watching the light bouncing on the glass and the amber liquid. He chews on the inside of his cheek, considering how to continue. “I am sure it’s her, and I’m sure she has plenty of apologies, and I’m sure she wants to make up, but I— well, I’m not sure _I_ want to.”

Rey tilts her head, brows knitted together in a tiny frown that Kylo does his best to ignore. The rustling of her fingers inside the plastic bag of chips stops immediately. He gives her what he hopes is a small, placating smile.

“There’s… history,” he continues, “History I don’t want to relive, not… yet… anyway. What happened felt like betrayal… _is_ betrayal.”

“Did she cheat?” Rey asks in a whisper, as if speaking it out loud would hurt him more. He’s unsure of whether it would, or if Rey’s voice might dampen the blow.

“You could call it that,” he replies. “She and I, we go back. To a time when I wasn’t a stable, grown-up adult with a job and people I cared about. I thought she’d be there forever, really. She and Hux, the other one. People I couldn’t live without, you know?”

Then he chuckles, allowing himself for just a moment to let the reality of the last two weeks wash over him like a tidal wave after having spent so much time trying to ignore it.

“I thought they’d be there forever,” he murmurs again. “Funny then, that I haven’t so much as missed them lately.”

Rey lets out a strangled little gurgle in her throat, which she then tries to cover with a cough, before shoving her mouth full of food. Kylo smiles. He’s come to learn that small tactic of hers: eat so you don’t have to talk. He leaves her to her silence, toying with his empty bottle. After a few moments, he looks at her.

“Tell you what, I’ll stop ignoring the text messages when you finally call Finn. I’m sure he’s worried about you.”

He’s not sure why he says it, why he offers, but it’s still a reminder. A reminder to place some distance between them, _much_ needed distance; a reminder that Rey belongs to somebody else, that this whole arrangement is a temporary distraction for both her and himself, and that he shouldn’t start relying on Rey to be his shield.

_Set the boundaries before it bites you in the ass, Kylo._

Rey stops chewing for a moment, staring ahead, then resumes it with even more fervor before swallowing.

“Okay.”

Kylo blinks. She’d been quick to agree.

“If…” Rey begins, hesitating for a second, “If it helps you fix things, maybe…” she clears her throat. “It’s an unfair deal for you, you know?”

Kylo nods, watching her silently with lowered lids, wondering where she’s going with this.

“It’s an unfair deal, since I was going to get around to it anyway, but… if it helps you? They—they sound like family to you. It’s worth trying to fix it.”

Rey looks down at her lap again, turning her head to go scavenge for another bag of chips to eat in order to hide her embarrassment, perhaps thinking she’s overstepped, and Kylo can’t help how his heart aches, squeezing tightly while simultaneously flooding his chest with warmth.

 _They sound like family to you, it’s worth trying to fix it_ , says the girl who has no family, trying to care for him in the only way she knows how. Kylo still clearly remembers her last conversation with her boyfriend, her heartbreak worn on her sleeve, stitched there with crushed hopes and frayed thread.

If Kylo weren’t sure he’d make things a thousand times worse, he would hug her right about now. Hug her tight and keep her there, cocooned in his arms where it’s warm. If she only knew how much there was to fix for him, both with his family and with… _them_ , how deep some resentments ran, she wouldn’t say it so easily, but she’s trying to help him with a care so sweet, so innocent, that it touches him so deeply it breaks his heart a little. She knows almost nothing about him, but she’s willing to care either way. Nobody had ever done as much. Nobody had _tried_ to.

He changes the subject quickly before he can do anything stupid.

“Would you like to go sightseeing tomorrow?” he asks. Rey perks up immediately, the weight of their previous conversation lifting visibly as she tilts her head at him, eyes hopeful.

“Don’t we have to start work here?” she asks. Kylo looks around the pub floor, then snorts.

“No water, electricity or heat,” he mutters. “We’ll have to contact whoever serviced this place and get them turned on. Can’t do much of anything until then. Might as well go look around, unless you don’t—“

“No, no! I want to!” she squeaks immediately, putting up greasy fingers peppered with potato chip dust and salt. _Little duckling, indeed._ Kylo smirks, and for the next twenty minutes they sit quietly talking about how much work this place would take while polishing off all the contents of Rey’s little plastic bag of junk food wonders.

When it’s finally time to go to bed, Kylo offers a hand to help her get up, offering her a paper plate with a candle and grabbing one of his own before extinguishing the rest. He guides them upstairs, hunched in on himself to avoid banging his head on the ledge up the stairs — this place certainly seemed a whole lot bigger when he was younger — and leading her into one of the guest bedrooms. It’s cold, but dry and comfortable, and there are plenty of covers and pillows on the bed and in the closet. He makes sure to pile as many of them as he can on the bed. At least this time she won’t be cold.

When he’s done, he turns around and grabs his candle, walking towards the door before turning around and looking at her as she surveys the room.

“I’ll go grab our bags, be back in a minute.”

By the time he returns, Rey’s plopped on the bed face first, a halo of hair hiding her features buried in the pillow. He shakes his head and sets her bag quietly at the foot of the bed on the floor, moving towards her and gently tugs off her shoes, setting them beside her bag and tucking her legs under the blankets, pulling the covers over her bare legs until he’s tucked her in completely. It had been a long day for both of them. It would be a pity to wake her up now.

Kylo leaves the room quietly, taking his bag with him and walking into the room next door, his childhood room. It was smaller than the others, not necessarily a guest room, not quite a staff room. Kylo rolls his neck, popping it as he finally allows his shoulders to sag, the tension he’d carried between his shoulder blades slowly dissipating while he goes about undressing, tossing a t-shirt on, then crawling into bed.

He lies there staring at the ceiling for a while, thinking about Rey’s words.

 _Could_ he mend things? Does he want to?

He closes his eyes, but the image painted on the back of his lids is not of Katherine, or Hux, or of an imagined alternative reality where Kylo Ren had the steady temperament and the mental fortitude to find enough understanding and compassion in himself to forgive. Instead, he sees Rey in her pale blue dress and his leather jacket, walking towards him… then sitting on hard, cold wood floors, eating chips and drinking beer with him like they were still teenagers without a care in the world. Rey agreeing without hesitation to call Finn so that, on the small chance it would help him, Kylo would answer his text messages.

He sighs, throwing an arm over his eyes and letting out a low groan. He needs to stop thinking about her already if only to stop himself from devolving into a mess of paranoid confusion. He rationalizes every thought with a single retort: his shock at her kiss is still coursing through his system.

She’s the only person he’d really interacted with for a while now.

_There are a million reasons._

Kylo rubs at his face, pushing all thoughts of Rey out of his mind. It would be a long day tomorrow. All this would go away tomorrow.

____________________

 

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Kylo wakes up to hot puffs of air against his shoulder blades. He blinks, sleep trying to lure him back with promises of rest and dreams until other sources of warmth start registering… against his neck, his lower back, his calves. His eyes blink open and he chances a look behind him.

Rey’s curled up against him into a small little ball, the blankets only half covering her. She must have woken up and changed because she’s in a t-shirt. Kylo sighs.

That’s right, she doesn’t do well alone.

He shakes his head into his pillow and turns again, deciding to ignore the desperate need to push himself away and place some space between them, choosing instead to readjust his comforters until Rey’s covered up completely. He breathes in once, twice, then exhales.

One moment she’s telling him she’s not made of fragile glass, that she cannot be broken, then the next she quietly slips into his bed like a toddler scared of things that go bump in the night. This girl confuses the living daylights out of him.

He’ll let it go… at least for now, rationalizing it as he does with everything else. She doesn’t sleep well alone, this is an unfamiliar place, her position pushed up against his back is entirely innocent, there’s no heat in the building. Would this be a nightly occurrence? Kylo rests his head back on his pillow, closing his eyes once more. When he dreams, he dreams of green fields and warmth, of flowers that smell awfully like Rey’s shampoo.

____________________

 

He wakes up before she does, getting up and changing quickly, and when Rey joins him downstairs he’s already made a run for coffee and neither one of them mentions the previous night. In fact, they act as if it hadn’t happened at all, because nothing _had._ He’d slept rather soundly all through the night, thank you very much.

He bids her good morning with a well-natured smile and Rey loses the edge of nervousness that had been clinging to her, accepting her coffee with muttered thanks and a yawn.

They drink their coffee quietly outside, looking out towards the fog-covered streets as Rey asks him questions about the town, though there’s not much to say: yes, he spent time here as a child. No, he doesn’t know _everyone_ , though he’s sure everybody knows _him_. Yes, he absolutely has a hiding spot but he’s not telling her what it is, because what if he needs to go hide one of these days? Yes, it was fairly pleasant. Some of his best memories, in fact, originated here.

“Would you like to go walk around?” he asks once her questions slow down from a stream to a trickle. Rey grins, a too-bright smile for this early in the morning, if you ask him, but it lifts up his spirits nonetheless. It seemed his moods were highly dependent on hers lately.

He extends his arm for her to step forward then they’re walking around for an hour, Rey at a very leisurely pace that Kylo tries to match by slowing himself _way_ down, taking half steps. Rey keeps ogling the little brick houses, covered in creeping vines and with lush gardens now beginning to bloom as summer begins to show its face, before pointing at the very bakery he had gotten their coffee and breakfast from with excitement.

Yep, she has a sweet tooth.

By the time they make a loop around, Rey’s got a little bounce in her step and Kylo has relaxed into his body, walking a few steps behind as Rey animatedly points out all the greenery, muttering that she wishes she’d brought her camera with. He shakes his head through it all, but the soft smile on his lips refuses to go away even as he sips on his quickly cooling coffee, and everything is going so well Kylo almost starts to believe perhaps he can make it through these three weeks.

Until, that is, his name is hollered so loudly a nearby dog starts barking.

It’s his old name.

“BEN SOLO!”

Kylo flinches instinctively, stopping on his tracks as Rey jumps and swivels towards the voice. Too early in the morning, and that voice is unmistakable. He turns slowly, wondering how the grandmotherly woman could _possibly_ still be alive even as he breathes in deep to compose himself after being caught unawares. Kylo’s easy going smile tries to flee, but he glues it on nonetheless as his eyes land on Maz.

“Long time no see, Maz.”

Rey comes to stand beside him and gives him a look that spells ‘ _who is that?’_ and Kylo leans in to quickly whisper in her ear.

“Maz. Luke’s old friend. She’s loud and eccentric, probably more so now. Just… bear with it,” he says before he straightens and grins at Maz, taking the red brick steps up to Maz’s little porch with one hand on Rey’s waist to help her ascend as he goes.

Maz has parked her ancient derriere on a rocking chair Kylo remembers from back in his childhood — apparently, Maz’s possessions lasted as long as she did — an old, graying chocolate lab who looks like he can’t open his eyes from age slumped at her feet.

“Chewie, say hi,” Maz instructs. Chewie’s grey-haired ears try to perk up a little and he opens his eyes lazily, his tail giving three semi-hearted thumps on the floor. Kylo assumes that’s about as enthusiastic as the old fellow can be about visitors. Still, Rey grins at Chewie. Kylo can almost feel her fingers twitching for a chance to pet him, which Maz notices.

“Oh go ahead, he doesn’t bite,” Maz says with a laugh, then looks at Kylo when Rey promptly obliges, crouching and quickly finding a suitable spot behind Chewie’s ears.The thumping of the lab’s tail on the floor becomes far more pronounced.

“And you, look at you, all grown up. How’s everything going? I never thought I’d see you again, young man! It’s been, what—“

Kylo smiles as pleasantly as he can, leaning down to give Maz a peck on her wrinkled cheek. “About fifteen years. Sorry I couldn’t come back. Life and law school got the best of me.”

Maz’s eyes light up. “Ohhhh, a _lawyer!_ You turned yourself into Mr. Moneybags yet?”

Rey nearly chokes on a chortle and Kylo rolls his eyes. Of course.

“I don’t know about that, Maz,” he says, trying to move the woman away from it as Maz studies him silently.

“I saw your car pull up last night, you know? Stop being so loud and skulking around in the middle of the night, boy. You almost gave me a fright,” Maz admonishes, then gifts Rey with a bright smile. “Though I see you brought along with you a lovely little lady. Girlfriend?”

Kylo’s spine goes rigid just as Rey stands up. Much to Rey’s benefit, she covers up her dismay — neither one of them has forgotten the catastrophe of having to play a married role — much better than he does.

“I’m Rey,” she says, effectively avoiding the girlfriend question while extending a hand to Maz that the matron takes between her own and squeezes. “Nice to meet you. I love your dog.”

If there’s one way to Maz’s heart, it’s by loving Chewie. Maz’s eyes immediately warm up, a bright smile spreading on her face, stretching the million years’ worth of wrinkles over her skin.

“You’re a good girl,” Maz says, patting Rey’s hand. Rey grins with just as much enthusiasm, her cheeks turning a flattering, ladylike shade of pink by the compliment. Then she looks at Kylo, the smile still on her face.

“I— would you excuse me? I need to go make a phone call. I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

Kylo nods and Rey excuses herself with another squeeze to Maz’s hand, digging in her back pocket as she takes the steps back down and away from the house to allow them privacy (and probably allow herself some as well). Maz and Kylo watch her go, both with varying degrees of warmth, before Maz turns her dark, all-knowing eyes on Kylo, tapping her chin as she speaks.

“Who’s the girl?”

 


	23. Flowerbud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey finally works up the nerve to call Finn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New update! wooo! thanks all for the comments and support and kudos you've showered this thing with since the last chapter. We've broken 1.5k comments and 1.2k kudos, whoa! look at this little fic, all grown up now.

“Oh, she’s cute!”

Rey’s head turns to hear Maz practically shout the words, her cheeks flaming up when she realizes the elderly lady is giving her a very appreciative glance while addressing Kylo. Rey ducks her head to hide her flush, moving to stand just a little farther away by the iron gate that opens up to Maz’s small front yard, the shrubs already showing hard little flower buds days out from blooming. She lets herself touch a few as she stares at her phone for a second, finger hovering over it.

Specifically, her finger hovers over Finn’s name on her Favorites list.

She should hurry it up and call. She’d been telling herself she’d call for days now. Her stomach churns as she recalls their last phone conversation, twisting painfully as she recalls his face. She hadn’t really thought about Finn’s face for a while, not unless prompted by circumstances, and the guilt eats at her now. Rey steals another look behind her shoulder, her eyes landing on Kylo’s back as he helps Maz out of her chair and opens the door for her, about to take their conversation inside. _That’s_ been the source of her distraction, Rey thinks, much to her chagrin. Still, she sighs, her muscles unwinding as the screen door and then the main door fall shut behind him. Out of earshot like this, Rey can finally have a private moment with Finn.

She takes in a deep breath and taps his name before she can chicken out, stashing away the vestigial traces of hurt from their last conversation far from her mind, bringing the phone to her ear.

It rings three times.

 _“Hello?”_ Finn’s voice comes over from the other side and Rey can’t help the minute twitch of her lips upwards. He sounds sleepy.

“Did I wake you?” Rey asks, plucking a small closed flower bud from the bush beside her and rolling it between her fingers. She looks at it, realizing too late that Maz may not like her vandalizing her flower shrubs, immediately sending silent apologies to the lady as she closes her fingers around the hard flower bud and looks at her shoes.

 _“Peanut?”_ Finn greets. Yeah, she totally woke him. Finn lets out a happy sigh and she hears the sound of rustling sheets as his head falls back on his pillow. The silence stretches for a moment and Rey bites her lower lip, staring across from the small pebbled road ahead of her at another sleepy cottage. It’s uncomfortable, her mind provides, even as she tries to ignore it. The silence is uncomfortable, so she breaks it.

“Yeah, Hi.” She says, realizing she hadn’t even said hello prior to this. “If it’s too early, I can call you later.”

That does it. Finn is quick to perk up, and the tone of his voice shifts from sleepy to wide awake immediately even as Rey considers the pros and cons of chickening out of this call now and hanging up. Before she can do so, Finn protests.

 _“No! No, please don’t hang up—“_ he pleads, and Rey sags a little into her clothes. Well, at least he wasn’t entirely unhappy to hear from her. _“I mean, I—“_

Finn stops, stammers slightly, grasping for words. Rey doesn’t blame him. She’d been grasping for words for a while now, delaying on calling because she still clearly remembers how bitter she’d sounded the last time she’d called, how she’d dismissed his pained concern and hung up after basically telling him she’d go sight-seeing by herself and _not to worry_. He clearly remembers that.

 _Well, you certainly did do some sight-seeing, alright,_ she thinks, listening to Finn’s breathing.

 _That_ he could hardly know about.

Rey sighs, providing the words she knows Finn wants to say. Somebody has to, and she’d been in the wrong for her behavior, if nothing else.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner.”

A heartbeat. Finn must have readjusted, probably fidgeted, because she hears him shift again.

 _“No, no, I should be the one apologizing,”_ Finn explains, letting out a relieved sigh. _“I just— I’m sorry.”_

Rey rolls the flower bud in her hand, her eyes once more falling to her shoes. They’re dirt-streaked from trekking all over the place come hail or high weather, and she can see the leather developing new wrinkles… they look… _well worn,_ her Irish adventure recorded on the shoe-soles.

“Me, too.”

Finn doesn’t say anything to that, choosing insteadto continue with his apology.

_“I figured you wanted your space, and… well… I hadn’t heard from you saying you’d be going back home, so I figured you took the hotel reservation I left for you. But, I’m glad you called, Peanut. Are you at the airport? When’s your flight?”_

Of course Finn would think she’s calling to say she’s boarding a plane back home. She sighs, but Finn, in his eagerness, plows right on through.

 _“When do you get home? I can call Bebe so they can pick you up at the airport.”_ Finn says enthusiastically, and Rey realizes he’s trying to make up to her in any way he can. _“I had Jessica pick up our car from the airport when you told me—“_

Rey says the words before she can once again chicken out of a situation involving her boyfriend, butterflies fluttering in her stomach as she drags in a gulp of air.

“Actually, Finn, I’m staying!” she says, trying to sound chipper. Finn’s line goes deadly silent.

 _“Staying?”_ He asks.

“Yeah.”

 _“You’re staying,”_ Finn repeats, checking for reassurance that he hadn’t heard her wrong.

“Yeah.”

_“Why?”_

Okay, talk about a punch to the gut. She had hoped he’d be _happy_ , deliriously so. He sounds anything but. If anything, he sounds confused. Rey purses her lips, biting back the first two responses that come to her mind and choosing instead to give a more… _pleasant_ answer.

“I thought I’d wait for you, see the countryside a little. I can work from here, after all.” That’s a lie. She hadn’t brought her camera, or her laptop, or _anything_ , really, but she isn’t about to tell him that, either.

Finn stays quiet for an unnatural amount of time, and Rey starts to fidget, already knowing what he must look like. She’d seen the expression plenty of times: furrowed brows, lips tight and withdrawn into themselves in a way that makes his cheeks comically push up slightly, like he tasted something sour but can’t quite bring himself to admit it. Any other time she’d find it endearing. Now it makes _her_ stomach flip. Finn’s silence was never a good thing. She breathes in deep and steels herself.

 _“Rey, that’s…”_ Finn starts, and she can hear his voice wavering. Rey feels something poking into her hand, she opens her hand, finding that what had been poking her had been the stem of the flower bud, now crushed to almost nothing. She lets it fall from her hand, wiping it on her pants as she waits for Finn.

“Yes?” she prompts when he says nothing.

Finn and Rey had always talked things out, whether it be major or minor decisions. They brainstormed the best outcomes and tried to figure out how to weather storms together. Maybe he’s upset because she’d made this decision on her own? She chews on her lower lip, shifting her weight. That might be the reason of his ambivalence. She says as much.

“I mean, I know I sort of made that decision without consulting you first. I guess I didn’t think about it,” she says sheepishly, “I’m sorry.”

 _“No, Rey, that’s not—“_ he’s quick to interject, and Rey throws a look over her shoulder towards Maz’s door. There’s nobody there. Good. “ _That’s not what I meant.”_

Rey frowns. “Well, what did you mean? Are you mad at me?”

 _“No.”_ Finn says, _“But this is coming out of nowhere. I feel like… like a lot of this is_ all _coming out of nowhere. Isn't this a little... rash?”_

“So I acted rashly,” Rey finishes for him, nails digging into her jeans. The sun’s starting to rise higher up on the horizon, the foggy sleepiness of the town rising and dissipating with it, and she looks down both sides of the road. There are a few people coming out the doors to pick up newspapers, a few of them giving her confused glances. It’s a small town. They don’t recognize her. Rey averts her eyes back down. “I thought you’d be pleased, though. I did come here to see you, after all.”

Another dead beat of silence, and Rey’s starting to sweat it out on her spot.

 _“I get that, Peanut. I really do, but you_ are _acting rashly. Where would you stay? How would you even afford it? And staying alone? I’m not there, you know I won’t be there for a few more weeks yet, it just seems—“_

Rey looks up at the sky. Would she really have to spell it out for him?

“I’d be alone at home,” she retorts, finally.

Her mind goes back to a mole-speckled face with beautiful golden brown eyes and a crown of jet black hair. She bites her lip. Thankfully Kylo hadn’t come out yet, else he’d get a front row seat to this mess. Saying the words feels like a bitter pill to swallow, but Kylo had been right. She’d be going back to Plutt.

She’d be going back to Plutt, and Rey finally sighs, rubbing her forehead because she’d put herself in this position. She’d be going back to Plutt and Finn had no idea how much it bothered her, because for years Rey had done such a fantastic job of making Finn believe that Plutt had _finally_ left her alone. They couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, so Rey had taken one for the team.

Guilt pools in her stomach at the thought.

She’d never thought it would come back to haunt her. But she’d made sure to convince Finn that Plutt had gotten bored of her, that the disgusting landlord had been scared off by the knowledge that _Finn_ was now around. That white lie is now quickly coming back to bite her in the ass. She couldn’t tell Finn that. It would open up a whole can of worms she’s not ready to discuss over the phone.

 _“Why not have Bebe come over and stay with you while I’m gone?”_ Finn finally asks, voice low, as if trying to make her understand. _“You know that my trip won’t end just because I return to Dublin. This is a six month gig, Rey. You knew this when we discussed me taking it.”_

There it is… he’s calling her by her name. Not _Peanut,_ not _Love._ Rey _._

“I know.” She replies, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the moment. “And I’ve found a place here to stay. A job, just until—“

 _“Wait, you what?”_ Finn’s voice floods with incredulity. Rey starts. _“You’ve been here less than two weeks and you got yourself a_ job _? In a foreign country?”_

Underneath those words Rey hears what he’s not saying, and he’s not saying it because he’s too nice: _are you insane?_

 _“And why would you even make such a big decision without even telling me?”_ Finn sputters, _“Is that why you hadn’t called me? You were busy_ job hunting _? I thought you said you wanted to_ sightsee _. I figured, sure, a few days on her own would hurt nobody, she’s a grown woman, but, Rey_ _—_ “

She can hear the alarm ringing in his voice, so she tries to interject to put him at ease that she’s fine and she knows what she’s doing, but Finn’s too busy letting out rapid fire questions on the other side, and the longer Rey dodges answering his questions straight forward, the more suspicious he gets.

Rey groans.

This is not going how she’d expect it would go, but then again, nothing about this trip is going the way she thought it would. “And here I thought you would be happy,” she grumbles, not quite believing her own words as she says them. “That I’d go this far to see you.”

That’s what finally breaks the dam.

 _“That’s_ exactly _why I’m worried, Rey! You’ve always been level-headed, kept your wits about you. I’m happy you want to see me, hell, I’d give anything to see you, but going so far as to look for a job in Ireland of all places is not something one does on a whim just because they want to see their partner for a weekend, Rey!”_ Finn’s voice keeps rising, every word tinged with disbelief, and Rey tries to put herself in his shoes.

Of course he’s confused. Even _Rey_ is confused. When he puts it like that, her plan sounds _mad_. Still, she’d come this far, running on fumes and determination, and a little help from Kylo Ren, and her own stubborn nature would not allow her to admit it out loud. So she lets out a huff and waits for Finn to continue his spiel, but Finn finally falls silent for a moment.

She can swear she hears a gong in the distance when he finally says something.

 _“Rey, why don’t you want to go home?”_ Finn’s voice dips, as if he’s finally starting to put pieces together. Rey grinds the heel of her shoe into the ground, but still says nothing.

 _“Is it because of Plutt?”_ he asks, tone hard, after minutes of enduring Rey’s silence, hesitating on Plutt’s name like it physically hurts him to say it. Rey nods, but that’s not the whole reason she’s here to begin with. It had _never_ been the reason. Sure, it had influenced it, but—

When Rey says nothing, Finn lets out a rough grunt.

 _“Okay. Fine. Let’s try another one. Rey,_ why _are you here?”_ Finn asks.

This is it, she thinks.

“I don’t think that’s a conversation we should have over the phone,” she replies. This is _not_ how she wanted it to go.

 _“No, no, I think this is something we should_ definitely _talk about,”_ Finn presses, sensing her desire to chicken out of this conversation. And she gets it, he’s worried. This is not her modus operandi. But she doesn’t want to say why she really came here over the phone.

“Finn, I _really_ think we should wait until I can see you in person. It’s just three weeks. I’ll be fine until then.“

 _“No, Rey,”_ Finn cuts her off, exasperated. _“You’re avoiding answering my questions, you’re acting… strange. You’re making decisions that make zero sense. And you’re_ lying _to me,”_ Finn accuses, the last nail in the coffin. _“You’re a terrible liar.”_

He’s right.

 _“So, why are you so insistent to stay here?”_ he continues.

“I said we should have this conversation in person.”

_“We can’t have it in person.”_

“Why not?”

_“Because I’m not there! Rey—“_

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

_“I could ask you the same thing! You’re acting like it’s such a big secret—“_

Rey finally loses it, the little thread of patience she’d been holding onto.

“Alright, Fine! Jesus Christ, fine. You want to know why? It’s because I came to propose to you, alright!”

Her outburst is met with silence. That feels more damning than him asking her if she’s out of her mind. Then he laughs. It’s a deep, throaty chuckle. Rey recognizes that one, the one that’s always half torn between confusion and amusement, but maybe… When Finn finally speaks, she senses relief.

 _“You came all the way here to propose?”_ he asks, yeah that’s certainly relief.

Rey almost smiles, but while her heart thunders all the way up in her throat, it’s hard to be able to make her lips lift up.

“That’s why I didn’t want to say it over the phone,” Rey grumbles.

 _“So it’s not because of Plutt?”_ Finn asks.

“No,” Rey replies. _Not entirely._

Finn goes silent, and Rey’s finally starting to think this is turning up when he lets out a sigh.

 _“Is this about the conversation at the apartment before I left?”_ He asks. Well, Finn may have his faults, but if there’s one thing he’s always had, it’s an uncanny knowledge of how her brain worked. Rey grumbles an assent. The next words out of him are heartbreaking.

_“Rey, you should go back home.”_

…

That’s not what she expected him to say. The words reach her ears in a murmur, as if muffled by something, and Rey realizes he’s probably rubbing at his face with his hand.

 _Exhausted._ Exhausted because of _her._ Her stomach flops, and Rey digs her nails into her hands.

“Excuse me?” she asks, jolting herself up when she realizes her voice had carried a little too loudly. A cat from across the street raises its hackles at her before scurrying off, and Rey looks around to make sure nobody’s watching, but her chest is squeezing tightly, and it’s hard to concentrate. Finn swallows audibly.

 _“Look, Peanut. I think we both need times to cool our heads,”_ he says, but Rey understands what he means. _She_ needs time to cool off. A part of her quietly resents him for that, but she says nothing. _“We can revisit conversation when I get home, alright?”_

Maybe it’s because she’s come this far.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , it’s because for once Rey is not so willing to sit back and acquiesce when he says _we’re not ready yet_ , and maybe it’s because part of her is tired of waiting and still begrudgingly agrees with Kylo Ren that her coming all the way here to put a ring on had been insane.

Maybe she really is mad. Maybe she left her reasoning skills all the way in baggage claim at the Cork airport, or at the security point at JFK, but she’d done it anyway, and backing out now would feel like having spent two weeks going through absolute hell and back had been for nothing, and she’s not willing to just be quietly sent back home.

Whatever the case, Rey gathers up her courage and finally lets loose.

“You won’t be home for six months. I just _proposed_ to you, Finn.” Well, not really. She hadn’t asked him to marry her. She’d just blurted out her intentions. Same thing, right? “And you want me to go back home and wait it out for six months until we can have this conversation again? This isn’t something to take a raincheck on, Finn!”

 _“You don’t think I know that?”_ Finn’s voice comes again, rising once more, and Rey knows she’s struck a chord somewhere.

“Any other person would be flattered!”

 _“We’re not any other people, Rey!”_ he finally barks, and Rey realizes she’d pushed a bit too far. Finn had never been one to raise his voice at her. Not like this.

“I know that,” she finally replies, her throat constricting as her eyes lower unconsciously. It’s not like her to be meek, just like it’s not like her to chase after prince charming. None of it is like her, and he says as much.

 _“Answer me this. Truthfully this time.”_ Finn starts. _“Where have you been since we last spoke?”_

Rey finds that she can’t answer that. And who could? How’s she to tell him she’s been traipsing up and down Ireland with another man, a stranger of all things, while trying to get to him?

“Does it matter?” she asks, trying to skirt the question. “I managed.”

 _“You_ always _manage, Rey,”_ Finn says, and though there’s no tone of approval there, given the situation, Rey can’t be mad at him because he’s not saying it sarcastically. He knows she’s capable. This is as much a fact as the sun rising from the East. She looks up at it now. The sky’s tinged pink, the first few rays hitting her nose. Rey squints and waits for Finn to continue. _“But that’s not what I asked you.”_

Still, Rey can’t answer, so she once again tries to skirt it.

“I was trying to get to you,” she replies truthfully.

Ah, but maybe she should have said it was because of Plutt.

 _“That’s what I mean, Rey!”_ Finn says abruptly. “ _That’s exactly my point! Since when couldn’t you just wait for me? We’ve always been best friends. We’ve always been joined at the hip, always relied on each other, waited for each other, but suddenly you can’t wait, so you jump on a plane and recklessly decide to take up temporary residency here with a job? You’ve been wandering around by yourself doing God knows what without knowing anybody, and you can’t even tell me where? All so you could… What if something happened to you? This isn’t the Rey I know! What’s happening here?_ ”

He’s confused. Oh, he’s confused, and scared, and panicking because he’s confused and scared, but Rey’s starting to see a little red at the edges of her vision now, because the words he’s saying are the _very_ same reasons she’d come here to begin with. Hadn’t she come chasing after him _because_ they’d always been joined at the hip, relied on each other, waited for each other? Hadn’t she come because he’s the perfect man, and she wanted a life with him? How was that so reckless?

She tells him that in so many words, and Finn falls mute.

Rey’s left breathing a little hard, and she once again looks around. She’s raised her voice twice now, without meaning to. Somebody’s bound to notice, and wouldn’t that be uncomfortable? Rey moves spots, hiding herself a little further from view through Maz’s window by using a shrub as a shield, crouching down to sit on her calves, back against the brick wall enclosing Maz’s yard and phone pressed tightly to her ear, listening to Finn breathe.

He breathes in once, then exhales, then does it again.

_“I’m not perfect, Rey…”_

The words leave him in a whisper. Rey blinks.

“What?”

 _“I said, I’m not perfect…”_ there’s something about the words, and how he’s saying them, that suddenly makes her feel very uneasy.

“What does that mean?” she asks, confused, frowning at the cat from across the street who has come back out from its hiding spot. It stares at her back with bright green eyes while she works to process the detour this conversation has taken.

 _“It means you have an image of me that I don’t think I can quite agree with, and I think…”_ Finn lets out the most pained sound Rey has ever heard, and when his voice returns in a murmur, each word enunciated to sound like Finn is getting knives stabbed into his heart, Rey’s own heart picks up speed. _“I think… You and I have been always joined at the hip…”_

He’s trying to make her understand something, but Rey feels herself lagging behind.

“Yeah, and?”

 _“And I’m not perfect,”_ he repeats, as if trying to make her understand. _“And when you say you came here to propose, what you’re really saying is you’re chasing Perfect Finn, Rey. I feel like you don’t… do you even know what you want? Outside of us? Outside of Perfect Finn, who’s always been there with you to the point where neither one of us knows what life is like without each other? Do you know what you want? Do I even know what I want outside of us?”_

The last question is not addressed to her.

Oh.

Oh, her brain is starting to catch up. He thinks she’s chasing a daydream.

_Well, aren’t you?_

That question comes in Kylo Ren’s voice, his face so close to hers as he stares her in the eye and holds her by the shoulders, much like he had once. Rey shakes away the image from her mind and tries to _focus_ , her heart thundering past her ribcage.

 _“I think you should go back home… I think we need… time to think. Is this what you really want, Rey? Or are you doing this because Jessica Pava got into your head and planted a seed there?”_ Finn says, his tone dejected, like it hurts him to consider that maybe Rey doesn’t want him at all, but if so, he’s not making sense, and Rey’s hurt, and angry.

 _“_ Are you breaking up with me? _”_ she asks, her lower lip trembling, because the words sound like that’s where this is going. Finn remains silent for a very long time.

 _“I’m saying we have six months. To figure out what it is we really want. We’re not on the same page right now,”_ he finally responds. So that’s not a yes, but it’s not a … no, per se. The panic is obvious in his voice.

Rey’s glad she’s pressed up against the brick wall, because she very much doubts her legs could keep her standing at the moment.

 _“_ We’re _not perfect, Rey.”_ Finn tries to explain.

“So you don’t love me?”

_“I never said that, Peanut.”_

The nickname hurts her more than anything else could possibly do.

_“I think, when I go back, and we’ve both had time to see if we’re okay with all this… then we should revisit this. But for now, I think… I think we need a break. To think.”_

“So you _are_ breaking up with me!” she nearly hisses into her phone, her fingers trembling around it.

 _“Peanut—“_ he starts, but before he can say anything else, Rey clicks off the call in a burst of anger, uncaring of what he was about to say next, because in _her_ mind at least, no matter how he words it, a break is a break is a break. And there’s only a one-word difference between a break and a break-up. And when things have always been joined together so tightly, even a small break can shatter bone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... that just happened. This one hurt to write. I'm sorry to all the broken hearts, but hopefully now things about Finn start becoming clearer. This one's been a long time coming. And this chapter officially pushes us past 100k words! THANK YOU! for sticking it out with me this long.


	24. Claddagh Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gazillion thanks for the last chapter, hot damn. That touched a raw nerve with many! I tried to answer as I could, but I won't be discussing Finn's storyline until Rey does something to further the plot, so for now we get back to our regularly scheduled heartbreak from Kylo's POV.

Kylo cringes at the sound of Maz’s laughter, who’s been having a field day with his retelling of how he got to be here with Rey for the last five minutes straight. He shakes his head, letting his facial expression drop to utter blankness while Maz wipes a tear from the corner of her eye with one bony finger.

“So you picked up a stray cat!” Maz laughs, eyes twinkling with delight. A cat isn’t necessarily what Kylo would call Rey.

He had made plenty sure not to divulge the more… compromising details of how he’d _picked up a stray_ , but still, the whole story in itself was ridiculous to begin with. Maz smiles, her eyes traveling out the window. Kylo’s gaze follows long enough to see Rey duck behind a shrub, away from prying eyes.

“She seems like a nice girl,” Maz comments. “Not sure about her smarts, what with acting so recklessly,” the elderly lady continues, then a wistful look takes over her face. “But I remember what it’s like. Ah, to be young and naively in love. Nowadays all I have is Chewie!”

Chewie’s tail thumps once at the acknowledgement, the old pooch not bothering to open up his eyes. Kylo steals a glance at him, then out the window again, hoping for a glance of Rey’s hair and being denied one. He sighs, rubs his cheek, then rests it against a closed fist and twirls the mug of tea Maz had served him.

“She’s something, alright,” he finally replies after having endured Maz’s teasing. “I don’t think she knows what she wants.”

Maz snorts.

“I don’t think _you_ know what you want either, Ben Solo,” Maz responds, cryptic yet insightful as always. Kylo instinctively stiffens at the name, giving Maz a withering glance.

“You know, that’s not my name any longer,” he says, feeling a little like a sixteen year old all over again when Maz narrows her eyes at him and gives him a half smile.

“Your uncle told me. Kid, when you’re my age, you find that the world spins faster yet everything changes so very, very slowly. You may have grown up in the blink of an eye, but you still look, sound, and act like Ben Solo. It’s been fifteen years. Isn’t it time to stop running?”

Kylo stiffens again. Maz finally huffs out a sigh, realizing she’s getting no answer from him.

“Fine, fine. I’m going to go get tea. Would your cute stray want any?"

Kylo arches an eyebrow, straightening when Maz smirks. He nods absentmindedly to the question, turning to look out the window again with a frown as Maz disappears through the arch doors to the kitchen, humming to herself. Chewie tries to nuzzle him for attention. He reaches his hand down and scratches behind the old dog’s ears, Maz’s words playing in his mind.

 _I don’t think_ you _know what you want either, Ben Solo_.

No, he really doesn’t.

He thumbs his lower lip, listening to the kettle’s high pitch and Maz’s steps as she goes up the old creaky stairs far slower than he remembers. He nibbles on the inside of his cheek, knowing he won’t get to see Rey’s head because she’s probably crouched against the wall, and turns his eyes to inspect Maz’s living room. It hasn’t changed in fifteen years. It probably hadn’t changed since at least a decade prior to that, shiny stones and sparkly bits and bobs littering the mantel amongst the faded picture frames holding pictures of much happier times, back when Maz wasn’t old and widowed. He sighs, standing up and approaching, picking up one and holding it up to his eye level.

The picture is faded, yellowed with time, but he can still see much of the tiny Maz he knows in the much younger one standing next to an impossibly tall brunette, arm wrapped around his lower hip as her husband stoops over to kiss her head. That had been decades before he was born, and there are plenty more all over the house showing the passage of time until Maz’s husband Charles had passed away, but this one always got his attention. He smiles, remembering the times he’d looked at this same picture and hoped his parents’ marriage had turned out the same. He wonders if he’ll ever find the same for himself.

Maz’s steps bring him out of it and he puts the picture frame down, turning to find the old lady looking up at him with warmth in her eyes.

“Same old Ben Solo,” she says, more to herself than to him, before approaching. Maz looks at the picture frame, eyes flooding with love and kindness, before she turns them on Kylo and lifts her eyebrows. “Now. You and I have something to discuss.”

 _Well, this can’t be good_.

He clears his throat, following Maz as she makes her way to the kitchen, stooping at the archway to keep from knocking his forehead and making himself smaller in the corner as Maz pulls the screeching kettle from the fire and prepares a tray. This place had _certainly_ seemed bigger when he was sixteen.

“So,” Maz begins when Kylo says nothing. “How are you planning on introducing her?”

Kylo blinks. Well, that certainly hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. He steals a glance towards the living room, half wondering and half fearing when Rey would come in, before turning to Maz. He passes her the canister of sugar when she points to it.

“I—“ he begins, then stops. He had no clue.

In fact, he hadn’t even thought that far. They’d been so wrapped up in their own series of misfortunes that Kylo had only been glad when he’d finally been able to unwind this morning, no seeming disaster on the horizon. He should have known better.

“You know they’ll ask,” Maz says, eyeing him from the corner of her eye as she busies herself with organizing the tray.

Yeah, of course they’ll ask. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Rey gossip grew fast here. Kylo groans internally, closing his eyes for a moment. Maz shakes her head with a smile. Then she digs in her pocket and out comes something Kylo is painfully familiar with. His eyes widen as Maz extends one knobby, wrinkled hand towards him, palm outstretched. The claddagh ring she extends to him glints in the light, three diamonds crowning a small heart cradled between adoring hands shining more brightly than they have a right to.

“Take it.” Maz says. Kylo’s eyes snap up.

“What?” he asks dumbly, immediately jerking away from it. He _knows_ this ring, remembers it glinting off Maz’s finger in the same picture he’d so fondly looked at only but minutes ago.

“Take it,” she insists.

“No, Maz—“ Kylo holds up both hands while Maz tries to push it on him. “That’s _your_ ring. Your husband gave you that. She’s only staying for three weeks—“

“Then you can return it to me in three weeks, though I hope you keep it anyway,” Maz says, then a sad smile crosses her lips. “Charles is gone and I’m an old woman. We never had children, so you’re the closest thing I have to a grandkid to pass it onto.”

Kylo frowns, his heart doing strange twists he hadn’t been sure it was capable of doing. Maz’s eyes soften as she looks at the ring in her hand. The silver is still shiny from years of wear, yet there are no tan marks on Maz’s hands. It had been a long time since she last wore it.

“It’ll keep the gossip from spreading. At least the wrong sort of gossip. Don’t want to make that girl’s life more difficult than it already is.”

Kylo once again looks at Maz, then, after a long moment, he takes the ring and pockets it, quietly leaning down and planting a soft kiss on her cheek. She gently pats Kylo’s face, a gentle, maternal smile gracing her lips. “You’ll thank me later, kid.”

Kylo nods, watching as Maz picks up her tray and leads it to the living room, following quietly behind.

“Go grab that girl of yours,” Maz says, the spell broken, and Kylo shakes his head, the weight of Maz’s ring like a brick in his pocket. He leaves the house, the screen door closing behind him with a screech as he takes the steps down two at a time. He makes a mental note to return to oil those hinges for her while his eyes scan the area for Rey. He crosses the front yard quickly, a handful of long strides carrying him to the front gate, and when he looks over it he finds her where he thought he would.

“Hey,” he says, swinging the door open. She flinches. “Maz has made us—“

He stops, her flinch registering a second too late. She’s got her back to the wall and her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, and Kylo immediately panics when he comes around to face her, a hardcoded reaction by now.

“Rey? What happened?”

Rey’s staring off across the road at an empty patch of grass, her eyes red and her nose wet. Kylo crouches in front of her, tilting his head as he reaches forward, unconsciously cupping her cheek.

“Rey? Rey look at me.”

Rey doesn’t look. The panic in him grows wilder.

“Rey,” he says her name for the third time. “Rey. Duckling, look at me.”

Rey blinks. Funny, that she’d reply to the nickname of all things. Maybe some things are being hardcoded into her as well.

“What happened?” he presses. Rey opens her mouth to speak, but no words come, then the door to Maz’s opens and he hears their name being called. Kylo curses. “Actually, stay here for a second, okay? Don’t move.”

He bolts back through the doors, across the yard, up the stairs and past the screechy screen door. Maz startles, looking at him like he’d grown a second head at his sudden rush.

“I’m sorry, we’re skipping on tea. Something came up. I promise I’ll be back, okay? I just…”

Maz purses her lips, throwing a glance back out the window. The woman has an uncanny ability to puzzle situations together. “Let me guess, the boyfriend?”

Kylo nods, thoughts running on high gear. He opens his mouth to say something but Maz only puts her hand out for him. For a moment he blinks in confusion, thinking she’s demanding the ring back, before Maz twitches her fingers at him.

“Give me your keys,” she instructs. “I’ll call the heating people and the others. They already know me and that place like the back of their hands. I’ll get that started, you go help that poor girl.”

Maz the Saint, is what she should be called, really.

Kylo fumbles in his pockets then promptly drops the keys into the old woman’s hands, dropping another kiss on her cheek as she practically shoves him out of her house. “Go now!”

Kylo bounces back down the steps two at a time, reaching Rey in record speed. His moods most certainly had become highly dependent on hers, and seeing her with puffy eyes and pinched-red cheeks immediately makes his stomach flip. He once again crouches in front of her.

“Rey?” he says, leaning forward and grabbing her hands. He slowly tugs them forward, then up, and when Rey follows but says nothing Kylo starts panicking about what could have _possibly_ happened that she’d go mute. Until, that is, she lets out a sniff and rubs her eyes with the palm of her hands. Then she looks at him and smiles, and his heart shatters.

“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s obvious she’s lying, but he won’t press that button. “What were you saying before?”

Kylo surveys her face, dropping from her glossy eyes to her lips. They’re bruised, and he can only imagine her sitting there constantly chewing at them in her worry. His eyes continue traveling down, to the death grip she’s got on her phone, knuckles white. Kylo purses his lips.

“Rey, what happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

She’s lying. She’s a terrible liar.

He stops, hears Maz’s door open again, only to see her making shooing motions at him from her doorframe. Kylo shakes his head before turning to Rey once more. It must not be good, whatever has her crying and avoiding the question, and though he has an inkling of what it could be, with her, he could hardly make a guess and expect it to be accurate. So instead he rocks back on his heels, hands in his pockets. The point of the claddagh ring’s heart pokes into the back of his hand.

That’s right. The ring.

Ugh, what a freaking mess. If he had even remotely thought of asking her to wear it, that idea may have just flown out the window with whatever Finn said to her on the phone.

“Is he okay?” he asks carefully, inspecting her expression. Maybe Finn got hurt. Rey nods, attempting to give him a smile that falls flat. “Are _you_ okay?”

She doesn’t say anything, and once again Kylo’s stomach drops, an ant-like itching beginning on the back of his neck with anxiety. He sighs, leaning forward and slowly prying her phone out of her deathgrip. Rey reluctantly lets it go, watching as he puts it in his pocket next to his own.

“No phone for now,” he says, “Okay? You promised you’d go sight seeing with me.”

Well, she hadn’t promised anything. If anything, _he’d_ promised _her_ , but Rey’s small smile, the minute chuckle she lets out through her tears, tells him he did the right thing. Kylo extends his hand out to her to take, and though she stares at his fingers for far too long, eventually she grabs a hold of it and lets him guide her away from Maz’s door. He gives her a reassuring squeeze, ignoring the few neighbors already up and about who give them curious glances, holding onto her hand all the way back to the pub.

“Would you like to drive or would you like to walk?” he asks, looking for any way to distract her, having caught the envious glances Rey had given the car the day he’d purchased it. Whatever makes her happy, he thinks. He grabs the keys and dangles them in the air. Rey grins, but despite the smile there are still tears threatening to slip from the corners of her eyes, and so she then sighs and lowers her head.

“As much as I’d like to drive, I don’t think I should right now,” she admits, looking back up at him. “Plus it’s nice out. We should walk.”

That’s the most she’s said since he stepped outside. Kylo eyes her warily, his line of sight once again following hers as she looks at her shoes. She’s certainly been putting miles on them. Kylo makes another mental note to buy her some new ones, proper ones to walk in, if she insists on walking from now on. She looks like she needs to be hugged, but he won’t do that. That might just send her crying, and he can sense her desire to _not_ talk about whatever it is she discussed on the phone with Finn. Instead he sighs for the upteenth time, once again putting out his hand to offer comfort in the only way he can.

“Come on,” he says.

Like the helpless little duckling she is, she takes it, looking at their entwined fingers the whole time and holding onto them like a lifeline even as they make their way out of the town and towards the sunlight of open fields. It’s still early enough for a chill to remain in the air, which should make the long trek to where he’s planned on taking her comfortable. He only lets her go when Rey finally pulls away, her tears having dried as she tilts her head up to the sky and draws in a lungful of air.

“So clean,” she murmurs. Kylo looks at her sideways, shoving his hands back in his pockets. Maz’s ring once again pokes at him, a clear reminder, if not a new complication _,_ and he exhales slowly. Kylo hums softly as they continue walking, Rey following next to him. It’s cute, the way she tries to match his step, considering he’s once again slowed himself down to almost nothing to keep up with her. 

“New York City air doesn’t exactly scream _clean_ ,” he agrees, searching the road ahead. There’s no traffic here in this sleepy little town and out towards the hills. It makes it feel like it belongs only to them. Rey turns to look at him, and though her voice trembles slightly still, he knows he’s piqued her interest.

“You’ve been there?”

Kylo nods, the corners of his lips lifting before turning down. “I grew up there.”

Then Rey laughs, and he’s thankful for at least this small distraction. It keeps her from focusing on other things. He itches to ask what happened, but by the look on her in front of Maz’s house, he doubts that would be a wise thing to do. They had finally managed to get on even ground, somewhere between friendship and understanding. Kylo doesn’t poke her buttons, she doesn’t poke his. Disclosing where he grew up seems less risky by a mile.

“No way, where?” she asks, now _very_ interested. Kylo looks away. He wishes he could tell her that he came from the bottom, that he worked himself up by the skin of his teeth like she had and made something of himself. In a way, he had. He’d had to start all over with a new name, after all. In a new place with a new life, but suddenly disclosing that he comes from the upper East side to her, of all people, seems…

“I don’t like to think about it,” he says with a mock shudder, “it’s too expensive just to think about it.”

Rey laughs, because, well… it’s true. It doesn’t matter where you live in New York City, it’s all expensive. It could be _anywhere_. She shakes her head and Kylo successfully dodges that bullet, the rest of their walk continuing in pleasant silence, though Kylo can hardly stop himself from stealing worried glances her way. By the time they arrive at their location, though, the sun’s up higher and they’re both breathing just a little hard. It’s quite a ways, after all.

Rey, however, seems to have forgotten about how taxing that walk had been and Kylo forgets his wish about taking the car when they take the steep turn on a hill and her eyes lift up to the ruins of the castle he’d taken her to. Her mouth parts, pink and awed, eyes wide, leaving Kylo full of smug self satisfaction over it.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” he chuckles at her childish response — and his, if he’s being honest — then absentmindedly grabs her hand again to help her climb the rocky, moss-covered hill. Rey doesn’t even seem to notice or care, hazel eyes too busy staring at the ruins up ahead of them.

It takes them no time at all to get to the top, and Kylo contents himself with letting her walk ahead, watching her fingers grazing the weather-worn stones, climb rocks and debris like she’s been made for it, hop over old windows and generally try to take in all of the castle at once. It seems to have taken her mind off her troubles just long enough to give him a shy smile. He may not get a whole lot of things right in life, but at least this one was one of them.

He urges her to go ahead, and they climb up the stairs slowly until they’re at the very top. Rey steps around gingerly, as if afraid that the floors are going to give in under her. He smiles, shaking his head and walking forward, then sitting at the edge of a collapsed wall.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die. These stones have been in this same position for a very long time now.” He says, patting the spot next to him. Rey frowns a little but scoots closer, crouching down then swinging her legs over, the breeze gently swaying her hair at her ears as she takes in the lake before them, wide and blue and calm, a chunk of sky on earth as it reflects the clouds above.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, the first thing she’s said in at least an hour. Kylo nods, once again thumbing the ring in his pocket.

He’s an idiot for even considering it, for having even accepted it. He’s an even bigger idiot for toying with it now. He looks at her. There’s a reason he’d brought her here of all places.

“It’s my hiding place,” he admits. Rey turns to look at him, brows high on her forehead. He’d only just this morning told her he wouldn’t show her this place. He looks away towards the view ahead of them. “It looked like you needed to hide.”

Rey stiffens for a moment, and when her eyes once again flood with tears Kylo’s panic goes on overdrive, so he starts babbling to stop the waterworks. The _very_ last thing he wanted was to make her cry.

“It’s hundreds of years old,” he says, motioning to the place. “Passed down generations through countless royal families. They used to hold royal dances in this room, right there in the middle.”

Rey blinks rapidly then looks around the delapitated room, frowning, probably trying and failing to imagine the room as a ballroom rather than the worn down, collapsed collection of rubble in front of her. She lets out a soft snort.

“They must have been tiny people,” she comments, looking up at the height of what’s left of the room. She’s probably right. Kylo barely clears the ceiling without smacking himself on it. Still, she’s talking, and distracted, so he pursues it.

“You’re one to talk,” he scoffs, and she gives him such a dirty look he can’t help himself, smiling while following her eyes. It really isn’t that big, but he’d believed Luke as a child when he’d said that balls were held here, standing on top of his uncle’s shoes and laughing while uncle Luke danced him around.

“How did they even dance in here?” Rey muses, inspecting the corners. He tries to imagine it as well, putting Luke aside and trying to imagine other people. _Them_. because he’s an idiot. That gives him an idea, though, and he’s a very big idiot indeed. Kylo stands and extends his hand. Maybe he could dance _her_ around a little and make her laugh.

“I don’t know, why don’t we try?”

Rey snorts.

“No thank you,” she replies.

Kylo’s brows rise.

“Chicken.”

Rey looks at him, mouth agape as she stares at his face, then, because he knows she won’t back out of a dare, Rey stands up to full height and tilts her chin up in the air. Kylo grins, extending his hand further. Rey takes it with a determination that screams of going to battle rather than dancing, but she must know he’s only trying to lift her spirits because she once again gifts him with a shy, if sad smile. So he twirls her around a handful of times until she lets out a giggle, then again until she’s laughing, and by the tenth time Rey’s laughing not because it’s funny but because she’s starting to get dizzy.

On the eleventh spin she sways, so Kylo pulls her in to steady her, placing both hands on her shoulders while her body moves from one side to the next, listening to her laughter.

Then the smile on his own face drops like a brick when, between a chuckle and the next, he hears a small hiccup. Kylo frowns.

“Hey,” he murmurs, trying to tilt her chin up to look at him, but she’s resolutely looking down and the laughter he had been so proud to ellicit from her slowly morphs from giggling to crying, his panic once again spiking when Rey lets her head drop against his chest. There’s no laughter now. Just silent sobbing, and Kylo doesn’t know where to put his hands, so he holds onto her by the shoulders, waiting silently for her to say something.

When the words come, he wishes they hadn’t.

“He broke up with me,” Rey murmurs, her forehead pressed to his chest.

He tugs her forward, closer, instinctively wrapping his arms around her and holding her in tightly, overprotective to the core. Much more so than he should be. Rey buries her face in his chest, the tears seeping through his t-shirt hot against his skin. Kylo tightens his hold on her while Rey’s arms hang limply at her sides.

“He broke up with me,” she repeats, this time to herself, and Kylo’s heart is breaking for her, even if a traitorous part of it leaps at this new development. He stomps on it, that traitorous, selfish part, along with the other part, the one filled with anger at Finn. He rests his chin on her head and lets her cry for as long as she will. Her body sways slightly, so he hugs her closer, and if Rey needs air she doesn’t give any indication of it because she only bunches her hands into his shirt at his hip, under his jacket, tugging him closer and crying even harder, looking for anything to anchor herself to, and Kylo can do nothing.

Nothing but wait. Nothing but watch as her heart shatters a second time, this time perhaps irreparably so, while she clutches onto the only other constant she’s got going for her, and what a monumental joke that the other constant is somebody she’d just met not that long ago on her trip to meet the very person who’s now breaking her heart.

He slowly starts swaying her, patting her hair and rubbing her back, softly uttering words of reassurance that she’s okay, that it’ll be okay and that he’s here. This is the last thing he’d had in his mind when he’d asked her to dance, but he slowly sways her from side to side nonetheless. Eventually Rey starts swaying with him, doing nothing but sniffle and hiccup into his shirt while he caresses the back of her head and gently shushes her, time passing them by as it ticks away.

A phone vibrates in his pocket, and he can’t tell which one.

What a freaking mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EY! New chapter! somebody give these kids a hug.
> 
> Glossary of terms:
> 
>  **Claddagh Ring** \- What maz gives to Kylo. [A bit of its history/tradition and how-to-wear here](https://www.overstock.com/guides/how-to-wear-claddagh-rings).  
>  **Upper East Side** \- [A visual](https://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/street-map-of-the-upper-east-side-of-manhattan).
> 
> Of note:
> 
> I started a new story! [**Kindred**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9484292/chapters/21460334), the story of Young Ben Solo and Rey meeting on Jakku, following an encounter on the waste of a planet and their lives PRE-TFA. It'll be in parts, probably 2-3 more yet (if not more), but the first chapter's now up! Please check it out. I'm pretty proud of it so far. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> EDIT: THANKS FOR THE 1300 KUDOS AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! *dies*


	25. Takeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey gets a little drunk and Kylo starts peeling back the layers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TRIGGER WARNING:** this chapter contains mentions of past abuse and child abuse. Please tread carefully. Please skip to notes below.

She can finally breathe. Rey opens her eyes after what had felt like hours of crying into Kylo’s chest, her lashes brushing the now damp soft cotton weave of his tshirt, dragging in a deep breath and pulling her head back. Or at least, she tries. Kylo’s chin stays atop her head where it had come to rest and remained ever since he’d pulled her into his body. She closes her eyes again, guilt pooling in her stomach at being in his arms when—

No. It doesn’t matter anymore. Finn dumped her, hadn’t he?

It doesn’t make the guilt go away. Instead, the guilt is joined by anger.

Yes, she’s angry. She’s angry that, after everything, after so many years of devoting herself to Finn, of thinking that perhaps she’d found her happy ever after, it had come to this. She’s angry that she’s crying in the arms of a near-stranger, no matter how warm and strong his arms are, how soothing his fingers feel as they stroke her back and cradle her head. She’s angry that she’d made this stupid trip to begin with. She’s angry that she’s _angry_. She’s angry that she wants to break down, because she had never been one to break. Rey hiccups.

Kylo lets out a soft ‘ _shhhh_ ,’ misunderstanding the sound for another whimper, and Rey tries to smile but only a sniffle comes out. Then she feels Kylo’s lips to the top of her head as he once again repeats the same words he’d been whispering to her for a while now.

 _“It’ll be okay_.”

Another tear rolls down the corner of her eye and Rey sighs, the fight finally leaking out of her with that last little trail of dampness. She slumps back in. She’s tired. She’s _so tired_ , and Kylo seems happy to just stand there and hold her, large hands rubbing soft circles on her back, long fingers lost in her hair, the steady drumming of his heart against her cheek anchoring her to reality. She’s _so, so very_ tired.

They stop swaying as Kylo finally realizes that she’s no longer sniffling, and though a desperate, lost part of her still wants to cling onto his shirt, Rey relaxes her hold and lets her hands drop. Kylo pulls back, just a little, and Rey looks up. It brings them so close she feels his warm breath on her face, soft and dark with hints of citrus from the tea he must have been drinking. Her distracted mind provides _Earl Grey_.

She licks her lips unconsciously and Kylo’s eyes follow, his line of sight falling from her eyes to her mouth between a hesitant heartbeat and the next as he inhales. Then there’s a buzz. Kylo frowns, his full brows stitching together as he tilts his head down and to the side, towards his pocket. It gives Rey enough time to pull away, though for a moment she feels Kylo’s unwillingness to let go in the slight tensing of his muscles, the reflexive pressure against her shoulder blades attempting to pull her back in before he quickly steps back and gives her a once over.

“Answer it,” Rey says, tilting her chin towards his pocket. She’d held her end of their deal. Kylo only frowns.

“What if it’s F—“

She shakes her head, cutting him off. “I doubt he’d be calling me now,” she murmurs, trying and failing to keep the bitter edge out of her voice. She’d just been dumped, after all. Told to _go home_ , as if it were so easy or so commonplace for Rey to hop on a plane and cross the Atlantic.

Kylo’s frown deepens and for a moment they stand there staring at each other, only a couple of feet of cold air between them, between her and the little pocket of safety she’d found while her world had started to crumble around her. Rey exhales slowly.

“Go on, answer it,” Rey insists when there’s another buzz, watching Kylo’s mouth and cheeks move as he undoubtedly licks and nibbles on the soft flesh inside.

“Fine,” he says, shoulders slumping a little, taking yet another step away from her. “Excuse me for a moment.”

She nods, watching his retreating back as he leaves through the door, down the echoing staircase and out of the ruins, far enough away from earshot. She walks back towards the collapsed wall, the one opening up to the breathtaking view that barely registers in her eyes. Rey crouches down then swings her legs over, leaning her head on the rough, weather-worn stones and closing her eyes.

This had been his hiding spot. What would a man like Kylo Ren possibly hide from? He seems to have it all figured out, after all. A wealthy man with a steady job and even steadier disposition, at least as far as he’d shown her. People like Kylo Ren didn’t need holes to hide in, not like Rey had. Then again, she remembers being a teenager… She opens her eyes, immediately drawn by the sound of crunching from a snapping twig. Out of her peripherals, Rey spots Ren walking a little further ahead.

He digs in his pocket and dread shoots through her uninvited at the sight of her phone, such a private piece of her in somebody else’s hands now, yet Rey forces herself to relax. She’d willingly handed it over. Now she can only watch as he looks at both her phone and his, the sun’s glare making it impossible to see which screen went active. It takes him a minute longer, then he pockets hers - the purple phone case girlish and obvious compared to the polished, sleek black of his own. She exhales, leaning her head back against the wall and settling in.

He stands just off to the side under the shadow of a tree, his ridiculously broad back half turned to her until she can only spy a hint of his profile. Kylo brings his phone to his ear, head bowed and shoulders hunched in on themselves much like he’d stood back at the gas station. Rey bites her lip, frowning. That can’t be good.

She crosses her legs at the ankles and toys with the hem of her shirt, torn between wanting to give him his privacy — this felt very much like spying, after all, intruding where she’s not wanted — and a visceral need to just… watch. Ultimately the visceral need wins, and Rey makes herself smaller. He doesn’t move much, at first. She can barely see his mouth moving, his posture nevertheless shifting slowly until he’s no longer slouching but standing ramrod straight, shoulders angling back by degrees, legs losing their relaxed bend, turning rigid instead. It seems to only take minutes, but she watches as Kylo Ren morphs from the awkward, gentle giant he’d been only an hour ago to something else, something… Rey can’t quite put her finger on it, can’t quite find the right word. Like a magic trick, Kylo Ren seems to grow taller, becoming larger and more imposing even in the distance.

She can hardly see his face, but she very much doubts she’d want to be right in front of him right this second.

Frightening. That’s the word.

Rey presses herself against the wall, her ear straining to listen despite her brain telling her that, for one, she would not be able to hear him from so far away and, two, she _shouldn’t_ even if she could. The point becomes moot when Kylo screams a “ _Fuck you, Hux!_ ” loud enough to reach her and sends his phone flying.

She flinches.

So much for fixing things.

That’s a side of him she hadn’t seen— the hard man, the short-tempered man. Oh, sure, she’d _seen_ his temper, had been on its receiving end once or twice, but not like this. The words had been heated, but never with the sort of savagery with which he’d spit out this one insult. He’d kept it on a very tight leash even then. Rey purses her lips, staring at Kylo’s stiff posture as he runs fingers through his hair. 

She’d experienced his disdain, his annoyance, his sarcasm, his playful jabs, even the scary ones when she’d first met him; she’d experienced his softer side, as well, the reluctant softness and care, his overprotective streak, his gentleness even as he rubbed her back and told her he was there. The man standing in the clearing below the shade of a tree is a whole different man, and Rey can suddenly picture him vividly in a court, standing tall and proud, or in a fist fight, an entirely different sort of beast. The kind of man who took no shit from anybody.

Rey tries to look away, but her eyes return to him over and over, watching him pace back and forth for a minute until he finally stops, his chest expanding with air before he stalks toward his abused phone, picking it up and pocketing it without so much as a second glance.

She immediately scurries away from the wall when he turns around and starts making his way back, listening to his leaden stomping up the stairs and preparing herself. When he finally rounds the corner, his face resembles a thundercloud, eyes dark, dim, and _furious_. That fury disappears on the next blink when he focuses on her face.

Oh, he’s still angry, she can see it on the anxious throbbing of a vein at his neck, the twitching of his jaw from grinding his teeth with the effort it takes to hold back. Well, misery loves company, and she’s angry too, if for entirely different reasons. Still, he’d made an effort before. She steps forward, slowly closing the distance between them as Kylo’s eyes track her every move, lids lowered to half mast in a minute frown, the permeating silence broken only by the click of her heels.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

He doesn’t respond right away. Instead his hand comes up and he rubs his thumb on his lower lip as if trying to smudge away his irritation, studying her with such intensity Rey forces her knees to lock in order to keep from shifting her weight or fidgeting. Kylo exhales, letting his hand drop.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says, doing an about turn and starting his descent down the stairs. Rey follows behind, staring at the back of his head, then taps him on the shoulder, forcing him to stop and look at her in the dimness of the spiraling stairs.

“What?”

They’re _almost_ at eye level. Even standing one steep step above, Kylo’s eyes are just a little higher than her own. Still, it’s enough. Rey reluctantly leans forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, feeling him stiffen under her fingers on contact while he braces himself with one arm on the inner wall, the seconds ticking by painfully slow. Rey rests her chin on his shoulder, against his hair.

“Just repaying the favor,” she mutters into his leather collar, staring ahead through a small arrowslit, smiling when he relaxes under her. One strong arm loops around her waist, tugging her closer. Kylo sags into her. He tilts his head and buries his face into her shoulder, for once allowing his walls to drop even minimally.

It feels weird, to be seeking comfort in him. It feels weird to be _offering_ comfort, something that has never come easily to her, yet here they are, mutual understanding passing between them. Misery loves company.

“You’re so strange, duckling,” he whispers into her skin. Rey smiles. “Always touching me, even when you hate to be touched.”

“You dislike being touched, too. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your jumpy twitching when women touch you,” she retorts, refusing to be the only one having her vulnerabilities aired like so much dirty laundry. Kylo’s shoulders tense, his shoulder blades twitching under her fingers as if preparing for a fight. It must be a reflex, she thinks. “Do you hate it now?”

She feels his chest rise and fall against her own, the exhale of breath against the thin strap of her shirt, against the bare skin of her shoulder while he picks his words carefully. Kylo lifts his face from her shoulder, propping his chin on it at last, and Rey muses about the fact that she’s become a chin rest while gently patting his back.

“Not from you, no,” he replies. Rey’s cheeks heat up for some reason. He makes no move to withdraw, so she closes one eye so she can have a clearer, focused view out the arrowslit, patting Kylo’s back again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

Kylo tugs her in just a little closer, and she thinks he must be considering it but it’s too late to find out. He drops his hand and finally steps back, forcing her to release him from the embrace or tumble down from having to lean forward. Kylo gives her a mild smile, his face having lost a degree or two of the hardness it’d held.

“You’d have to get me drunk first.”

Rey’s brows rise. “I can arrange that.”

The mild smile turns into a devious smirk, and Rey internally breathes just a little easier. He’s back to the Kylo she knows.

“I doubt it,” he says, arching an eyebrow at her. “I don’t make a habit of drinking alone, and you’re a lightweight.”

Rey snorts, then a hiccupy giggle escapes her. For a moment she’d forgotten about the weight trying to crush her. For a split second she’d forgotten about her pain, her gears already trying to scheme on how to get Kylo drunk, grasping at the first distraction available. That realization had suddenly become very funny to her. _Seriously._

Maybe she’s going insane.

“What?” Kylo tilts his head like a confused puppy and that only makes her laugh faster. He snorts.

“I was right, you’re a strange one,” he mutters, turning back around and continuing down the stairs. She follows, their descent broken only by a hiccuped chuckle from her every once in a while.

The walk back to town is painfully slow, Rey reluctant to arrive and Kylo reluctant to say anything about what just happened, so they walk side by side and listen to the birds flying overhead, taking their sweet time. By the time they make it back, the sun’s starting its slow descent into the afternoon. They swing by Maz’s place and Rey makes quick work of apologizing for taking Ren away, but Maz only gives her a gentle pat on the cheek and sends them on their way with the keys. The heating and electricity may not be working yet, but at least there’s running water now. Maz said the others would swing by the next day.

“You go ahead,” Kylo prompts, pointing her towards the stairs. “I have a few things to do yet.”

Rey looks at him out of the corner of her eye, frowning at the way he keeps fumbling inside his pocket before shrugging, exhaustion finally sinking in both physically as well as mentally. The thought of standing under hot water for a while suddenly sounds so very appealing. She nods and makes her way up the stairs, grabbing some clothes and padding over on bare feet towards the shower.

The pipes screech at her when she turns on the tap, but after a while water starts shooting in streams. The water people must have already run them once because there’s no rust coming through, so she strips quickly and steps under it, immediately turning into a pile of goo. Sure, her walk was taxing and the events of the day draining, and it’s not necessarily _cool_ outside in the middle of the day, though that would quickly change by nightfall, but the hot streams cascading on her head feel like a blessing in physical form right then and there.

She leans against the wall and closes her eyes. With exhaustion come more tears, with solitude more chances to give into despair, and she’s tired. Rey lets herself cry again, thankful that she doesn’t have to act strong for once, whether with Ren or on her own, until eventually she runs out of tears and has to start pulling herself back together again. Would she just keep doing this? Randomly bursting, always exhausted, wondering what Finn is doing on his own while she clutches at her chest and tries to understand where she went wrong?

An hour later sees her downstairs, dressed in yet another dress because she’d been stupid enough to only grab one pair of jeans. If she could scold her past self, she’d give her an earful. Rey walks down the stairs on bare feet while towel drying her hair, following the sounds of plastic noise until she’s standing at the kitchen door.

Kylo stands over plastic bags, fussing about with the contents.

“What’s that?” she asks. He looks up, then his hands come up with two giant bottles of red wine.

“Dinner,” he replies. Rey’s brows rise.

“Alcohol for dinner?” she asks stupidly. Kylo smirks.

“No,” he tilts his head towards the bags. “But they go with dinner.”

Rey moves towards the bags to look inside. Take out, and it smells strongly like pasta and meat, the sweet scent wafting up to her nose. She hums appreciatively and her stomach grumbles. Kylo pulls them away.

“Not yet,” he says. Rey frowns, but he simply walks around her and out the kitchen. “I’m going to shower.”

Rey watches him go, then turns towards the food. Well… he said not to touch the food. She eyes the wine. He hadn’t said anything about the liquor. Maybe she could drown her sorrows in Cavernet Sauvignon. She spends the time Kylo’s in the bathroom fighting with the cork, prying it out slowly with her fingernails while walking up and down the kitchen floor after her largely unsuccessful hunt for a corkscrew. Then she hears a chuckle from behind.

Rey spins to find Kylo leaning against the door frame, hair in an unruly mess of damp waves and an amused twinkle in his eye, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Starting so early?” he asks, tilting his chin at the bottle in her hand. Rey huffs.

“You’re the one who got it,” she says, then tilts the bottle towards the kitchen door opening to the backyard. “And it’s not so early anymore. Sun’s about to go down soon.”

And it is, much to her own surprise. They had spent most of their day walking, something Rey’s now thankful for. The ache in her muscles keeps her from focusing too hard on less pleasant matters. Kylo shakes his head, taking her in once again. Rey’s cheeks warm up again when his eyes linger a little too long on her bare legs, and for a second she’s glad she had the good sense of mind to shave in the shower.

She clears her throat. Kylo’s eyes snap back up, looking mildly like a deer caught in headlights, though he composes himself quickly enough.

“Give it here,” he says, extending his hand. Rey walks over and passes him the bottle. He pops off the cork with barely any effort.

“I loosened it for you,” Rey says, a retort she’d used on him once already. Kylo’s smirk widens and he hands the now open bottle back.

“This is actually a really bad idea,” he says, grabbing the second bottle and getting to working off the cork. “Probably.”

Rey takes a swig of her own, ignoring the cups sitting in the plastic bag in favor of just drinking straight from the source while thinking back to the last time they’d decided to drink a little too much. She purses her lips around the mouth of her bottle, finding it hard to care. She’s tired, and hungry, and taking off the edge by any means necessary doesn’t seem like _such_ a horrible idea at the moment.

“At least we’re not sharing germs this time around,” she says lamely. Kylo stops for a moment, glancing at her sideways before he once again bows his head over the cork, grumbling unintelligibly to himself. Rey leaves him to it and goes towards the pub floor, setting her bottle on the window sill and inspecting the place.

It would need work. The walls need to be painted, the light fixtures need some serious updating and no doubt the electric sockets as well; the wooden floors need a serious polishing and a good coat or two of sealant, the windows could probably use some hard renovating, and a wall or two could afford to come down to open up the space even more, though she doubts Kylo would be in for such hardcore renovations. And that’s just this room.

She grabs two chairs from the stacked tower in the corner, pulling them to the center of the room, then looks at one of the tables. Dragging it by herself would surely scoff the floors.

“Ren?” she calls over her shoulder. Kylo’s head pops out from around the kitchen door. It’d only take a few moments for the table to join the chairs. “A little help?” 

With no electricity they’re once again stuck with candles, scattering them all over the place. First order of business in the morning would be to take down the shuttered boards on the windows. Rey brings her bottle over, Kylo brings his and dinner, and for the first time all day she finally has a moment to sit down and just… breathe, and everything’s going wonderful — or as wonderful as it can be, considering the situation — until she notices the way Kylo continually looks at her over his fork.

“What?” she asks with a frown, trying her best not to flash him a mouthful of food, which he must find hilarious because his tiny smirk returns again for a second. Then he puts his fork down with a sigh.

“Finn called,” he says, digging in his pocket and pushing it towards her. “Back at the castle. By the time I got the phone out of my pocket he’d hung up.”

Rey stares at the phone, food immediately forgotten, what little she’d already swallowed turning to lead in her stomach. Her eyes search for Kylo’s.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, you didn’t look like you could handle much more.”

“No, it’s okay,” she replies, unsure of whether she truly means that or not before pointedly returning her attention to her food. Kylo keeps looking at her for a moment longer before letting out a gruff little noise and busying himself with his own pasta.

“It’s not okay, though,” Kylo mutters after a while. Rey looks up again, suddenly having lost all appetite no matter how delicious the food in front of her smells. She pushes it away from her, grabbing her bottle of wine and clinging onto it after taking a swig. “Don’t you want to call him?”

“No.”

The answer comes immediately, startling even her, and her gaze immediately falls on the phone sitting on the table like a silent dare. But she’s angry, and once again it coils, ready to spring and unleash as Rey’s lips press together and thin. He’d ditched her. He’d ditched her _over the phone_ and the hurt she’d felt, while still no less present, is quickly overriden by anger. Kylo must have noticed because he tries to once again put it in perspective for her.

“Rey, he’s your family. Isn’t it—“ he says and Rey laughs, knowing he’s about to quote her words from the previous night.

“No.” She repeats, placing the phone face down on the table so she doesn’t have to stare at the screen and wonder if he’d call _any minute now_. She’s angry, and she wants to continue feeling angry, if only because up until now she’s felt nothing but sad. Finn ditched her and she’s sitting with a sweet man who has done nothing but take care of her all day — no, this whole _trip_ — without needing to, and Finn broke up wit her _over the phone._ For once she just wants to give into her anger and not think. Tomorrow she can feel bad about herself and try to call Finn. Tonight she’d give into her most primal need to just… fume.

“It rang while I was in the shower, too.”

“Fine.”

“And again while I was coming down the stairs.”

“Fine.”

“Rey—“

“I said no.”

“Fine.”

They finish their food in silence. Then it’s Rey’s turn to speak.

“Who is Hux?” she asks. Kylo flinches involuntarily.

“Nobody you need to worry about,” he replies, his voice dropping an octave. He studiously keeps his eyes on the bottle in his hands. Perhaps she’s not the only one who’s angry. She tilts her head, studying him.

They’re pathetic, the two of them, sitting and trying to drink their sorrows away. Then again… Rey leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of his eyes in the candlelight. He looks at her for a second before once again looking down, and annoyance curls in her chest that she’d been deprived of the golden glow reflecting on his irises.

“Kylo?”

“Hm?”

“Who is Hux?” she asks.

Kylo finally looks up. There it is, the golden glow.

“My partner,” Kylo finally admits after a while. Rey’s eyebrows shoot up. Oh… she hadn’t known… Oh…

“Oh… so it wasn’t a woman?”

Kylo’s lips twitch at the embarrassed look on her face, shaking his head as he tips his bottle back and takes a gulp, face scrunching up at the alcohol when he finally pulls back and sets the bottle on the table.

“My _business_ partner, Rey,” he continues, and Rey’s face turns three degrees too hot. “He’s the other partner at the law firm.”

“Oh!”

“Like I said,” he says, pushing a lone noodle around with his fork. “Nothing to worry about.”

“So why did you yell at him?” she asks, unable to contain her curiosity. She knows nothing about Kylo’s job, other than the barest of descriptions. It’s like a whole world removed from her solitary life as a freelancer. Maybe finally saying it outloud might help him. Kylo gives her a withering glance before scoffing. Rey takes a drink from her bottle, already feeling fuzzy at the edges. Maybe that’s why she’s been so bold, after all. The bottle’s already two-thirds gone.

“You don’t give up, do you?” he says, leaning back in his chair. Rey leans forward as if the sudden distance between them might keep her from hearing what he has to say. “You sure you want to hear it?”

Rey nods. If she’s going to be living with this guy for three weeks—

 _Is there a point to staying for three weeks now?_ Finn had told her to go home. He wouldn’t be looking for her when he came back from Portugal, so—

“There was a boy,” Kylo says, suddenly very interested in the drawstrings of his sweatpants. “Six. Cute little boy. His case had just come under my supervision. His social worker had explained he’d been taken from his home after a teacher at his school learned some rather… horrific details.”

Rey frowns, already hating the way this is going. Flashes of her own childhood spring up uninvited, of her own life as a six year old. She immediately starts connecting the dots. Kylo’s specialty is fighting for victims of abuse.

“Was he hurt?” she murmurs, her fingers trembling in her lap as flashes of Plutt pass through her brain in quick succession. Kylo’s lips purse.

“His dad left when he was young.” He continues, refusing to look at her in the face. “The kid’s teacher had mentioned that the boy seemed to think certain…” he said, choking a bit on his words, “He’d fallen during recess, split his knee open. He asked the teacher if he’d kiss the booboo like mom often did. The teacher said no, sothe little boy pointed to his pants. Asked if she was going to kiss _that_ booboo instead, like mommy did. He was scared. The teacher was alarmed and tried to ask what he meant.”

Rey’s fingers tighten into her thighs, the alarms in her head ringing at maximum volume as she stares at Kylo slack jawed. Kylo rubs a hand down his face, through his hair, then grunts.

“The kid finally said mom kissed his _booboos,_ then made him kiss hers. He had pointed at the teacher’s lap.”

Rey pinches her eyes closed, bile rising in her throat. “So the mother was…”

Kylo nods, and Rey makes a disgusted sound that catches in her throat and refuses to dislodge itself.

“He was left in my care to take him away from her, but unbeknownst to me, the mother went and hired Hux. In the end, it was the word of a six year old with no physical proof on him versus the only legal guardian he has. That day, after the case was seen in court, I may or may not have stormed into the office and punched my partner.”

Rey blinks her eyes open, looking at Kylo in a new light. She can almost imagine it. No, she _can_ imagine it. Rather clearly, really, after seeing him screaming at the castle. She swallows and Kylo inhales deeply.

“Wait, so it wasn’t a woman?” she asks dumbly, because now she’s confused. Kylo smirks.

“Oh no, it definitely was. At least in part. Katherine was my _actual_ partner outside of the office. She's also Hux’s aide. Plus I’m sure there was more going on there. Hux had always had the hots for her anyway. They certainly had seemed rather fond of each other when I burst into that room and split open his nose.” Those words are said with both a sick sense of satisfaction and so much venom that Rey immediately tries to make herself smaller. Then Kylo smiles a bitter smile. “I decided I was done that day. I packed my things, bought my apartment, booked a flight, then ran into you at JFK so many hours later.”

Rey’s mouth finally clicks shut. She hadn’t realized she’d left it hanging open.

“I’m so sorry.”

Kylo smiles with absolutely no mirth. “What? For running into you?”

“No, not that. Well, that, too… but…”

Kylo nods.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Rey looks at her phone sitting screen-down on the table. Suddenly her problems seem so much smaller than his, especially considering the things she’d yelled at him before without thinking before. What he’d just told her was horrible, and it honestly made her want to double over and vomit. It hit too close to home for her. It—

“You said it was betrayal,” she murmurs, trying to process the new bits and pieces of information she knows about this man. Rey twitches. Kylo studies her closely as understanding… _some_ sort of understanding… slowly starts dawning on her. She’s been angry all day, but Kylo. Kylo…

Kylo must have been angry for weeks. And even so, even after all that, she’d done nothing but continually impose on him and drive him, try to poke holes in him, digging where she’s not wanted. Her stomach drops. Kylo doesn’t move, his golden brown eyes piercing into her even in the dim light.

She has so much to make up for. Tears slowly start prickling at the corners of her eyes. Tears she hadn’t counted on spilling, yet they come despite her bafflement. 

Rey gets up, momentarily perplexed at her weak knees as she stumbles slightly to the side. She must have drunk more than she thought. Kylo reaches out instinctively to steady her, grabbing her hand to keep her on her feet, and Rey gives him a sad smile when she speaks next. Maybe she could start helping _him_ now.

“I’ll have that dance now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the warning: Kylo speaks of what finally drove him to Ireland, a case involving a small boy and sexual abuse by a guardian. Please tread with care if you know this is a trigger for you. Thank you.
> 
> \--------
> 
> WELL. Kylo's layers finally start peeling back. It's been a long time coming. I know we were neck deep in Rey's pain, but comfort and vulnerability run both ways here, and I've been waiting a long time to finally start opening up the little Mystery Box that is Kylo Ren. Sorry it was so heavy there ;--; the tags will be updated shortly. 
> 
> Thank you for the ridiculous amount of support you guys have given this fic. We're || this close to 1800 comments and 1400 kudos (whaattttt?!). And that's still crazy to me.
> 
> \--------
> 
>  
> 
> **EDIT: A Note regarding the case's perceived conflict of interest:**
> 
>  
> 
> This has been asked a couple of times in the comments section so I thought it would be best to just copy paste my response here.
> 
> This conflict was discussed with a few lawyers already. Obviously it's being done to fit my story (this is fiction, after all) but even so I want it to have a shred of truth. Kylo speaks more about this in the next chapter, but he is a guardian ad litem, not the representative of the state. He's only there on an advisory level to look into the well being/best interest of the child, not as the lawyer on behalf of the state who would be pressing charges. He also takes the work pro bono (so basically volunteering to advice at this point) so while I am sure if a law expert were to dig enough they could poke holes in this, once again, for the fact that this is a story, we went with what would suit our plot.
> 
> Even so I am still seeking legal information from attorney friends to see if I can rework some of the stickier bits, but in case it can't be done, bear with me and just suspend your disbelief on this one. Thank you!


	26. Playlist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey hates everyone. She lets Kylo know _very_ clearly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND NOW WE GET TO MOVE PAST THAT HORRIBLE BIT OF TRAUMA and towards other things, thank Vader. Thank you all who took the time to read and comment on the last chapter, and my apologies to those who struggled with it. I know it's a lot.
> 
> This chapter is coming to you now because I won't be able to update for the rest of the month (probably), so to make up for it I leave you with this early golden nugget.

Rey yanks Kylo’s fingers until he gets up and follows, dragging him to a spot on the floor clear of candles and chairs, then smiles. She’s grabbed her bottle and he hadn’t put his down, so she lifts hers to him. Kylo clinks his bottle to hers, amusement slowly bubbling inside of him. She’s already swaying, far more gone than he is, and though she’s giving him a bright smile Kylo hadn’t missed the sheen of tears at the corners of her eyes, so he decides to humor her.

Rey then drops her hand, remembering something.

“Wait!”

She runs to her phone and turns it face up, all the while half-leaning against the table to keep upright, and studiously scrolls through what he can only imagine is her playlist. Kylo stands back and watches, slowly taking a sip from his bottle. Numbing away his anger and frustrations seemed like a good way to spend the night. Hell, he knows that getting drunk right now is probably a really bad idea… but he’s tired. Rey finally clicks up the volume and turns around, hair swinging. She grabs her bottle and walks back just as the first few notes of the song start playing.

_Sunshine she’s here you can take a break~_

_I’m a hot air balloon ‘bout to go to space~_

Kylo arches an eyebrow.

“Really?” he asks, the corners of his lips twisting up. Rey grins.

_Because I’m happy~_

_Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof~_

Kylo shakes his head and Rey reclaims his hand, slowly doing a half-sway, half bounce that makes her look both ridiculous and adorable.

“Come on, Mr. Moneybags, dance!” she sways, and he chuckles. She picked the most inappropriate song in the history of musical selections to dance to, considering they’re standing in candlelight, inebriated, and alone. Then again, maybe it’s a great choice all things considered. She _is_ trying to cheer him up, and cheer herself up, and suddenly the song seems oddly appropriate.

He twirls her around once and Rey laughs, bouncing a bit more, and Kylo’s shoulders relax.

Ah, what the hell. He takes another hard swig out of his bottle and spins with her around a bit more. He can feel the edges of his own judgment starting to get fuzzy. No better time than now to make a fool of himself.

Kylo spins once more and slides on the floor, pulling her along and swinging her about. Rey giggles and he laughs.

_Here comes bad news, talking this and that~_

Kylo snorts. Bad news has a name and he’s spinning her around the room. He smirks and dips her, and Rey lets out a squeaky noise, endearing and high pitched and hilarious, so he laughs as he rights her.

_Well, I should probably warn you, I’ll be just fine, Yeah!~_

_Because I’m happy~_

_Clap along if you know what happiness is to you~_

Well, neither one of them would be clapping, but drinking seems like a passable replacement. Kylo drinks and so does Rey, and his bottle’s starting to get low, which means he’s getting to the most alcoholic part. This is a really bad idea.

_Happy, happy, happy~_

_Can’t nothing bring me down, I said~_

_Happy, happy, happy~_

_Because I’m happy~_

Rey twirls a little, bounces even more. He lets go of her hand and watches her spin on her own in front of him. She’s so gone already. He pulls out a hand to steady her when her twirling turns rather _too_ lopsided, bringing her in by the waist before grabbing her hand, spinning her a bit more until she laughs and the song ends.

Then another starts. He hears the familiar beat of _Livin’ On A Prayer_ , a song he would have never expected her to listen to but seems oddly… fitting… for her. But he’s not really paying attention to what’s playing as much as he’s watching what the woman in front of him is doing. She snorts when it starts playing, making a face at some sort of knowledge he’s not privy to, then sways a bit, swinging her arm and his between them as she takes another gulp of wine without care. She wipes her lips with the back of her arm and looks at him.

“So what happens to the kid?” she asks. Kylo blinks.

_Back to this, then?_

He sways with her, turns with her, pulls her in, swings her out, then brings her back in only to match his pace to hers, careful not to slam his wine bottle into her own. It doesn’t seem to make her forget, though. Her eyes are surprisingly focused on him still, waiting for an answer.

“I assume the case is still on the court floor,” he says, looking at his wine bottle. “I took the work pro bono, was appointed as the kid’s Guardian ad Litem. I am sure the case was passed onto somebody else.”

“The kid’s what?” Rey asks, tilting her head sideways like a confused puppy. Kylo smiles.

“His lawyer. Or, really, an appointee to investigate into what would be in the child’s best interest, but nothing more. It’s limited advice at best.” He says, wishing he had a free hand to run through his hair, but he’s got Rey by the waist. Priorities.

Rey drinks from her bottle, studying him with eyes that are quickly starting to glass over, whether from the wine, or the sudden influx of lingo, or both. He arches an eyebrow at her.

“What?”

“So he’s not back with his mother?”

Kylo shrugs. “I didn’t get to find out.” He’d been too busy chucking his phone at a boulder and watching it bounce. "I appealed to the court to release me from the case based on a conflict of interest the second I found out what Hux had been up to, then I left."

Rey narrows her eyes.

He has to give it to her, despite her inebriation, she’s a sharp little one. Rey leans up on tip toes and he tightens his hold to keep her from tipping sideways. She gets so close into his breathing space that he can start counting her freckles one by one.

“So why did you punch Hux?” she asks.

 _There it is_ , he thinks. Just as the thought crosses his mind, the song switches to something else, and he catches the lyrics for a moment.

_So I'll play along when I hear that special song~_

_I’m gonna be the one who gets it right.~_

_You'd better move when you're swayin’ round the room~_

_Looks like the magic's only ours tonight~_

_But I don’t feel like dancing~_

Kylo snorts. Her music selection’s… interesting. And oddly well-timed. He doesn’t feel like dancing anymore, either. Kylo lets out a soft puff of air into her face, trying to get her to move back so his chest can stop squeezing in that rather uncomfortable way it’s doing right now. Rey’s undeterred. If anything, she leans up closer.

Kylo sighs.

“He’s a dick, that’s why,” he finally says. Rey smiles.

“Well!” Rey announces. “Here’s to you, then!”

Yeah, she’s very drunk now. He probably should have stopped her drinking a while ago… but he’s not that far behind, either. He looks at his bottle. It’s empty. He looks back at Rey, and she’s still holding hers up and saluting him with her equally empty bottle. His answer had placated her enough. Kylo chews the inside of his cheek, feeling oddly guilty at holding back information, but he hadn’t _lied_. Hux had been very aware that Kylo would not approve of him taking such a case and had taken it anyway, making Katherine keep it from him, of all things. _Work is work_ , Hux had said. _Snoke greenlighted it_ , he’d said, as if that fucking mattered. Hux _knew_ better. He knew, and still chose to please Snoke, making some very unethical decisions in the process. But he’s not about to tell Rey that, so he once again grabs her arm, sends her swinging out only to try to pull her in. Then everything starts going oddly wrong when, instead of letting herself be pulled in, Rey tries to twist so _she_ can spin _him_.

His arm twists and he tries to move along with it, to let himself be spun under her hand, but she’s already barreling towards him from the force of his pull and he’s much taller than she, so she can’t spin him properly and his foot slips.

Rey yelps. He lets his bottle fall from his grip so he can use his hand to steady himself as he stumbles backward, Rey careening towards him. Her own bottle goes spinning when she tries to steady him, but hardwood floors have no traction and next thing he knows he’s splayed on his back, Rey spread-eagled on top of him in a mess of limbs.

It takes him a moment, then he hears Rey’s hiccupy giggle. The giggle turns into outright infectious laughter, and he stares at the ceiling and joins her soon enough. He laughs until his sides start hurting, hands spread out at his side as if he were trying to make snow angels, closing his eyes and laughing for minutes on end.

It feels good to laugh.

Rey tries to get herself up, wobbly knees drawing up until she’s half sitting on his stomach, hands at either side of his head by his shoulders, looking at him with a very serious, very drunken face.

“Fuck Hux!” she squeaks.

Kylo laughs even louder. She doesn’t even know Hux, but the venom spilling from her could easily match his own, or Hux’s, for that matter.

“You don’t say,” he responds, moving a hand to place it on her waist. He should move her off soon.

“And what’s her face!” Rey says, her cheeks turning pink and her frown intensifying. Kylo takes _what’s her face_ to mean Phasma, so he nods to that, too. Somehow having Rey angry on his behalf feels… _good._ _Right_. Like that’s how it should be. How it should have always been. He’s sure it’s because the same reasons that drove him away also hit close to home for her. He licks his lips, wondering if he’d revealed too much and not enough all at once. “Fuck her, too!”

Kylo smirks, only feeling a minor pang of pain at the thought of Katherine. Surprisingly, though, having Rey say the words makes it a bit more bearable.

“And Finn, too!” she says, obviously high on her trip of anger now. Kylo blinks rapidly. That’s not a name he’d expected to hear. Then again… she _had_ just been dumped this morning.

“Rey, you’re drunk.” He says, inspecting her face and moving some of her hair out of it, tucking it behind an ear so he can see her expression clearly. Her eyes have once again misted over. “Don’t say something you’ll regret tomorrow.”

The music’s still playing and he can’t hear a thing because Rey’s too close, his ears getting drowned in the sound of her breathing as it hitches and picks up speed. She’s so very angry. He can see it all over her features— the stitched eyebrows, the splotchy bits of pink threatening to bloom on her cheeks, the red rims around her eyes, now dampening with new tears, her usually bright hazel eyes dim and cloudy, her beautiful lips turned down in a hurt pout.

“I’m not going to,” she says, but he knows she will, because her voice is starting to slur at the edges, and though she tries to say that with conviction, the tears start in earnest.

“You might regret saying that, too,” he says, his heartstrings tugging and pinching so hard it suddenly becomes hard to breathe, and it’s not because of Rey’s weight slowly pressing on him as she slumps.

“Why?” she spits out, pinching her eyes closed for a moment. She tries to rub at her eyes and loses some of her balance, so he steadies her and uses a thumb to rub away the tears for her instead. “He’s the one who decided this wasn’t worth it, not me. I have a right to be mad.”

“Yes you do,” he says, lowering his voice to a murmur. Rey nods as if him agreeing with her is exactly how the universe should operate.

“So, fuck Finn, too,” Rey hiccups out, sniffling.

She’s a whirlwind, and he’s been caught in it since day one. Kylo swallows, rubbing a thumb down the side of her nose and wiping away more tears. She’s going to regret this tomorrow and he’s going to regret indulging her, but she’s _hurt_ , and it hurts _him_ to see it. He thinks back to her resolute desire to get to her knight in shining armor, going through hell and high water — sometimes recklessly so — in order to make it happen. That she’d be dumped had been the least expected outcome even for him, and he’s only a third party viewer here.

Well… perhaps not a third party so much now. He rubs her cheek and sighs out her name, trying to get her to look at him, and Rey opens her eyes once again. Drunk and crying.

She’s drunk, and crying. And he’s drunk and about to do some very stupid things the longer she sits there straddling his stomach and crying over him. He feels a tear drop on his neck and roll down.

“He said we aren’t on the same page. I came all the way here and you were right, Kylo,” the bitterness in her words is so sharp it cuts. “He couldn’t even make the time. I know, it’s work, but…” she cries even harder. “I came _all the way here_ , and for what?”

Now she’s just sobbing uncontrollably, and Kylo has always known what to do with crying women, just not… this one… So he stays quiet and continues wiping her tears with his thumb, lips pursed and chest aching. He’d always teased her about being helpless, but the headstrong woman he’d come to be so very painfully aware of is _so_ very strong, no matter how bullheaded and prone to tunnel vision. The girl breaking apart atop him truly _looks_ helpless, and he suddenly doesn’t know what to do to make it better. Maybe that helplessness has become part of him, too.

“Rey—“ The words that start spilling out of him suddenly feel like he’s betraying himself, but he stomps on that feeling nonetheless. He can’t deny the attraction any longer, but she’s not _his_ to try and keep. “Maybe he was scared.”

Rey stops crying long enough to pin him with a death glare.

“ _I’m_ scared!” she seethes, looking anything but scared as she moves her hands to bunch them into his tshirt. “What about me, huh? But no, a man is scared and suddenly it’s okay to forgive him everything—“

She’s not just angry. She’s _furious_. The beginning generalizations are his tip off. Kylo scoffs but remains where he is. She’s not done, though.

“You men, you’re all the same. Suddenly there’s a hint of commitment and _no!_ Poof!” She bites out. Kylo just barely keeps the smile off his face, if only because he knows she doesn’t mean that. Just like she doesn’t mean she hates Finn. Still, he arches an eyebrow at her even as he continues to caress her tears away.

“Are we, now?” he says. Rey nods sharply.

Drunk, angry Rey is a force to behold. Beautiful but deathly. He’d had weeks for his anger to fade, for the edges to dull and the fury to wear down, and though it still simmers inside of him, he’d been able to bring it down from boiling point thanks in no small part to this small woman in his arms. Rey’s just started her trip down that road of anger and resentment. He understands how it feels, so he lets her rile.

“And what else are we men?” he asks. Rey huffs, but then her face scrunches up and she starts sniffling again.

“You’re all heartless. He is — _was_ everything — and I just,” she sniffles, “I j-just wanted— You’re all horrible.”

“Hmmhmmm,” he agrees. “And what else?”

Rey narrows her eyes, hovering down a little more so the glare she directs at him can deliver more of a punch, or maybe it’s because her eyes are full of tears and she probably can’t see through them. Either way, she sneers into his face, her hurt and anger spiking as he watches and feels hot droplets on his cheek. Rey punches his chest, thumping down weakly on it.

“Y-you’re all idiots,” she spits out, “And I _hate_ you all.”

Kylo smiles lightly. Of course she does.

“Does it make you feel better?” he asks. Rey blinks, confusion passing through her drunken eyes, lips pink and swollen and wet from her biting down on them. If he focuses enough he can see a small slip of pink, the tip of her tongue pressed right behind her teeth. She’s beautiful even when she’s angry.

“What?” she asks, her voice rising comically.

“Taking it out on me,” he explains, running his knuckles down her jawline and swallowing. The alcohol is making his head swim, his fingers shake slightly, and Rey’s too close. He’s trying to do the right thing here, but god she’s too close. “Does it make you feel better?”

Rey frowns, arms shaking as she tries to pull herself back. “Yes.”

Kylo’s lips twitch up. He wipes away another tear of hers. “Okay, I’ll be the most hateful, heartless man in the world so you can ha—“ next thing he knows his words get cut off.

“Oh, shut up,” Rey barks, scrunching her eyes closed and smashing her lips against his, sobbing even as she tries to kiss him to accomplish exactly what she’d ordered him to do, stealing the breath out of his lungs. His heart stutters for a few heartbeats.

It’s not really a kiss, either. Not that he’d expect one. They're just lips angrily mashed together. When he tries to gasp for air his teeth knock on hers, and Rey pushes him down hard on the floor when he tries to lift himself up, sobbing into his mouth and using him to relieve whatever itch has been bothering her, spilling her outrage on his tongue. He lets his eyes close for a moment because he’s an idiot, then gently cradles her cheeks in his hands, pulling her away slowly and inspecting her crying face from under heavy-lidded eyes.

“Rey,” he says her name in warning. Rey averts her eyes immediately, sniffling. “Why did you do that?”

It’s a stupid question to ask. Why should he even be questioning it? She kissed him. It’s the second kiss she’s given him. Shouldn’t he just give in and enjoy it? A treacherous part of him, a _really_ big part of him wants to.

Oh, that’s right. Because she’s drunk, and so is he, and he’s a stupid man. Rey swallows, and Kylo has to apply a small amount of pressure to her face in order to get her to look at him.

“What does it matter?” she says, snippy until the end of time. “I just wanted—“ she stops mid-sentence and wrinkles her nose, trying to dislodge herself from him. Her common sense must be kicking in finally.

Kylo sits up slowly, bending his knees so she’s well and truly planted on his lap. Even in her desire to get away from his searching gaze, Rey’s back slumps into his thighs. She only has so much fight in her, really. _He_ only has so much fight in him when he once again cradles her cheeks, fingers dipping into her hair.

“You wanted what?” he presses. “Look at me.”

Surprisingly, she obeys, her lower lip quivering in her drunken despair. “I just wanted to f-feel wanted, okay? For once! He didn’t want me. I just want to feel wanted.” The last bit of that comes out in a whisper, Rey settling her eyes on her lap, her legs spread on either side of him. “Nobody ever wants me. I just wanted to feel wanted.”

Kylo tilts his head, his stomach churning and not from the alcohol. He swallows thickly. He’s going to regret this. Oh, he’s going to regret this, but his nerves start humming in expectation anyway.

“You’ll regret it tomorrow,” he says, his last ditch effort to snap her and himself back to reality. Rey’s lips thin as she purses them, then she lies.

“No, I won’t.”

She would kill him. She would drive him to his grave and he’d go willingly. This is so wrong, and he’s a stupid man. Somewhere his wine-addled mind muses that one kiss had led to two, had led to four, and he shouldn’t be wanting more but where his brain says stop his body has started _singing_ with need. His eyes once again fall on her lips, much like they’d done a billion times since the other night, where she’d walked up to him and dared him to stop her before wiping his mind blank in the middle of nowhere. She has a boyfriend, and plans, and a life, and he barely knows her and she’s not his—

But she _doesn’t_ have a boyfriend. At least not right now. Maybe she’ll have one again tomorrow, when she decides she doesn’t hate men, and doesn’t hate Finn, and gets back together with prince charming. So many reasons…

Fuck it, he’s drunk. For once, Kylo wants to be selfish.

He leans forward and brushes his nose against the tip of hers, eyes on hers as he breathes in her breaths, feels her warm cheeks under his fingertips. That wine had been a really bad idea. Rey’s breathing stammers then speeds up, jerky breaths puffing against his lips, but she doesn’t move away from where he’s got her cradled in his lap.

“Well then,” he whispers to her lower lip, slipping his hands gently over her jaw and deeper into her hair, tilting her head slightly as he sits up properly and curls over her until his hair caresses her temples. “Kiss me properly.”

Rey whimpers, but her face dips forward and so he rises to the occassion, meeting her in the middle of the small gap that remains and welcoming her mouth with his own. They slot together like they were made that way, two parts to a whole finally reunited. He feels her tears running against his palms and down his wrist, and so he remains calm no matter how much his nerves start to thrum from the base of his neck all the way to his fingertips, wanting above everything to tug her in closer and devour her. He instead goes lax, gifting her with tenderly slow kisses.

The music must still be playing from her phone but he can’t hear it. All he hears are the soft, sad sighs Rey lets out, her hands clinging onto the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. She wants to feel wanted and he _wants_ her, but what she needs right now isn’t sexual fulfillment as much as a balm to soothe her wounds, so he gently runs his fingers against the hollow of her cheekbones, pushes her hair back, caresses her jaw, and continues kissing her at her pace. Still, his mind is screaming because no matter how much he tries not to physically react, even these small kisses meant to provide comfort are still sensual enough to make his good sense snap.

He tugs her in closer, drawing his knees up and feeling the apex of her thighs meet his hips, biting back a groan with every shred of self-control he owns. Rey once again lets out a soft whimper, but there are no tears this time — a win, in his book — so he dares go a little further, nipping at her lower lip and demanding entrance. She allows it and he drowns in the heady taste of wine mixed with  _her_ , a growl threatening to slip out of him.

From the frying pan to the fire. He’s willingly jumping into the scorching fire, and _God_ he’s going to regret it, but it feels good. Kylo lets one hand drop, wrapping his arm around her hips and tugging her in until she’s pressed up against him. Any closer and their bodies would probably fuse together. He suckles on her lip, then lets it go, kissing her chin and moving towards her jaw line, dropping gentle kisses on it as his breathing picks up pace.

“Feel wanted now?” he nips at her skin, and Rey whines, her breathing hot on his cheek. He kisses her jaw again, dropping his lips to her neck and carefully trailing them along her pulse point.

Rey’s head lolls back, and she lets out a soft little sound, but as the seconds pass and he gets no response, Kylo’s brain starts finally turning its gears like a functioning human being should. He pulls away slowly and looks at her. Her eyes are closed.

No way.

Kylo kisses the tip of her chin, torn between smiling and raging with pent up frustration now.

“Rey?” the words are soft, ghosting over her skin. “Duckling?”

Rey’s lashes flutter, but her head tilts to the side, her eyes remaining closed. Kylo groans internally.

She’d fallen asleep on him.

Of course she would, drunk and exhausted as she was. He exhales and lets his forehead meet her shoulder. She’d kill him one of these days. Kylo wraps his other arm around her waist and hugs her tight.

“Do you even know what you’re doing to me?” he says into her skin, words muffled by her dress.

No, she probably doesn’t. Hell, even _he_ doesn’t.

Well, at least she’s no longer crying. Kylo gently sets her down on the floor, righting himself before collecting her in his arms again and _carefully_ making his way towards the stairs. He nearly stumbles sideways a couple of times, the room starting to sway just a little, but he manages to get upstairs with Rey in his arms and no physical damage. Kylo toes the door to her room open and gently deposits her on the bed, pulling the sheets over her and then promptly leaving for his own room. He’s an idiot but he’s not _that_ much of an idiot.

Stripping down to his shorts takes him exactly two minutes, and Kylo throws himself into his bed with gusto. If he couldn’t cuddle Rey he’d cuddle his pillow, at least. He closes his eyes, burying his face into the soft sheets.

Dumbass. Idiot. Moron.

What would she say in the morning, when alcohol no longer inhibited her reasoning skills? What would _he_ say? Yeah, he can no longer deny the attraction. It had been hard to do that with her pinning him down, yet part of him hesitates. Nevermind the fact that this is happening at breakneck speed… She _just_ got dumped, _he_ just stepped out of a relationship. How would hooking up with this girl make his life or hers any easier?

He groans, closing his eyes and hoping that his dreams are quiet, surrendering to sleep without even checking what time it is. A few hours later he wakes up to hot puffs of air on his shoulder blades again and Kylo well and truly _gives up_.

Yeah. He gives up. He waves the proverbial white flag. He’s tired. He goes back to sleep, ignoring his muscles’s pull to turn around and wrap himself around Rey. He’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d let her cry and air her grievances.

_Boundaries, Kylo._

That last thought repeats on loop as he once again gives in to exhaustion. As if boundaries existed after he'd only just finished full-on making out with the girl and shoving his tongue into her mouth. 

God, he's fucked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs:
> 
> Happy - Pharrell Williams  
> Livin' on a Prayer - Bon Jovi  
> I don't feel like dancin' - Scissor Sisters
> 
> Cont'd note on conflict of interest: Vader bless attorney friends explaining how to appeal to a court for a release from the case, and unethical behavior (which given it's Hux and Snoke, after all...). Thanks to all who pointed this out and helped me jump the hoops to make it work.


	27. Ray Bans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a new day! Time to face the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whispers*  
> Here's an update because I couldn't shake off these two. I love you guys.  
> *slinks back into the darkness and into her scheduled break*

A headache wakes her. And not just any kind of headache, either, no. It’s the very specific sharp, insistent throbbing that can only herald the biggest hangover on earth. Rey squeezes her eyes shut against the dim light and groans, twisting under the sheets to get comfortable. That’s when she realizes she’s caged.

Opening her eyes feels like getting poked with needles so she squints instead, shifting her arms a little as she takes in the wide expanse of naked chest currently pressing up against her face. Well, that’s unexpected.

Then again, Rey vaguely remembers crawling into Kylo’s bed in the middle of the night, preferring to deal with him than with the emptiness of a still too foreign room and nightmares bearing her landlord’s face. Rey tries to glance up at Kylo but only gets as far as his adam’s apple before her head complains with a sharp stab of pain to her temple and her vision starts swimming. She closes her eyes and readjusts, Kylo’s heavy, warm breath on the top of her head reminding her of a dragon sleeping while holding onto his hoard, one very heavy leg thrown over her own. She’s not getting out.

Well, at least he’s still sleeping. She could just… close her eyes, fall back asleep…

The sleepy rumble born deep inside Kylo’s diaphragm vibrates against her cheek where it’s pressed on his chest. She grunts, trying to untangle herself from his hold only to be pulled in tighter, Kylo refusing to let go even in his slumber. Which would be fine— well… not _fine,_ there’s nothing _fine_ about this situation right now, really— but it would be _fine_ , if not for the fact that she’s breaking out in a cold sweat and his body heat is making her feel a little queasy.

Lesson learned: do not drink a whole bottle of red wine in one sitting and expect to survive the next morning.

Rey whines, snaking her hands between her chest and his and trying to push him away.

“Kylo?” she croaks out, her throat parched and gritty. “Hey.”

Kylo grumbles, mumbling incoherencies into her hair. If anything, he shifts closer.

“Hey,” she says again, rasping out his name a second time. “You’re warm and I don’t feel good.”

That makes him open his eyes. A dragon. He reminds her of a dragon, at least the ones she’d seen in movies. His eyes blink open slowly, taking all the time in the world to focus, and the next huff of air to hit her face when he looks down could just as easily be fire.

“You’re too warm,” she says once more, trying to keep the queasiness in her gut from escalating. The last thing she needs is to throw up on this guy because god would that be both gross and utterly embarrassing. “Can you, uh… let me go now?”

Kylo’s hold eases, allowing her to move back and get some much needed cold air between them. It calms her head a little, but the light’s not helping much. Kylo notices her pinched expression. He grabs the comforter and pulls it over both her head and his, leaving an opening at the top big enough for air to filter in.

“Better?” he asks.

She nods.

He watches her without saying another word, a sort of quiet discomfort quickly replacing sleep, so, naturally, her brain takes that moment to remind her of the events of the previous night. Her brain stabs at her with pain again, repayment for the bottle of wine she’d downed in her misery. Her instincts tell her to bury her face in her pillow or get out of bed, but instead she takes in Kylo’s face and wills herself not to chew on the inside of her cheek. She might be having a headache from hell, but it takes a back seat to clearing the air between them.

“About last night—“

“You were upset,” Kylo says, completing her sentence with much kinder words than the ones she’d had thought up for herself, sparing her the embarrassment.

Rey looks down, but doing so only makes her look at his chest. She moves back another inch, every detail of her drunken night with Kylo Ren coming back in sharp, vivid detail, her mind’s eye focusing in on the very explicit moment Kylo had asked her to kiss him properly. The very moment she had given in.

Her body temperature rises. Kylo reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s so bold, so intimate, yet when she searches his face for motive, she only finds concerned tenderness there. Then he smiles.

“Do I need to be on alert for hair-holding duty?” he asks. Rey gapes, her flush motivated now by entirely different reasons.

“No,” she replies, making a face and pulling the comforter off their heads and sitting up, legs crossed. Kylo props himself up on an elbow, oblivious to what his naked torso is doing to her. “I don’t plan on vomiting anytime soon.”

Well… _she_ doesn’t plan on it. The jury’s still out on what her body might decide. Kylo’s smirk only intensifies. She ignores it. Her headache, however, won’t be set aside so easily, but this feels like a conversation that needs to happen in the open.

“About last night.” She begins again, Kylo’s smile falters, his brows inching closer together in the beginnings of a frown.

“Any regrets?” he asks. Rey looks at her hands.

“No. It’s just— I said some things,” she begins, not knowing how to continue. She may check out of reality when sick, but she’s not a forgetful drunk. What she’d said about her anger remains true, but… Well, certain things in life could not be hated. Finn is one of them. “And I have to apologize for my behavior. I was upset, and I know blaming things on alcohol is the lamest way to get out of compromising situations but I just—“

“Rey,” Kylo sits up, cupping her cheeks, encouraging her to look at him. The touch is no longer foreign to her, as easily accepted as if he’d been doing that all her life. “It’s fine.”

Except it’s not fine. There’s a certain sadness in his eyes she can’t quite read but senses nonetheless.

“You were upset,” Kylo repeats, eyes searching hers. “It means nothing, right?”

Her words on his lips make her chest ache. Funny, that.

Rey fights to keep from worrying at her lip, the only sound in the room that of the clock ticking the seconds away. “I— right.”

Kylo nods, flopping back on the sheets and making himself comfortable before looking at her. “So what’s the plan now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, all things considered…” Kylo looks at the ceiling.

Ah.

“Well, I was thinking—” she begins, but whatever she’s about to say next is lost when he sighs, running his fingers through his hair. 

“Of going back to your landlord?” he says, face contorting in obvious distaste. “Well, I guess in that case… I could always give you the keys to my flat. You can fly out to LA and wait out there.” Rey’s eyes threaten to prickle with tears at the corners, so she blinks rapidly to keep them away. It’s sweet how much he worries. Kylo completely misunderstands her expression. “It’s not like I’m using it right now anyway. You wouldn’t have to pay for anything.”

“You would trust me just like that?” Rey asks.

“As if you’d be able to do any damage.” Kylo snorts, giving her a once over, leaving her unsure whether to be amused or insulted.

“I’m staying.” She says. Kylo’s head tilts sideways, taking her in fully. Maybe he’d really expected her to go? After all, she has no reason to stay now that Finn had made it perfectly clear he wasn’t willing to discuss marriage. “I can’t afford to fly out anyway, so I’ll just work here and save up.”

“Or I could just…” he starts. Rey immediately purses her lips. _Of_ _course_ he’d try and offer. This guy seems to have a complex where she’s concerned, one she can’t understand, but that goes along the lines of keeping her happy and well taken care of at all costs. The irony isn’t lost on her. Still, she has to draw the line somewhere.

“No.” She says, lacing her words with conviction to keep him from balking. “I can’t continue relying on your generosity without returning the favor. Plus you actually do need the help. I’ll stay and work, okay?”

Kylo nods, realizing there’s no arguing on this, then looks back at the ceiling. “So you’ll wait for him?”

Rey flinches, then quietly untangles herself from the sheets and gets out of bed. Kylo doesn’t push the question, choosing instead to stay in bed as she makes her way out of the room and towards the one where she _should_ have slept.

By the time she comes downstairs, freshly showered and feeling a little more human after squeezing herself back into her pair of jeans, Kylo’s already up and about, hair damp and two cups of coffee he must have run out to get sitting on the counter. 

“You really have to stop doing that,” she says, nevertheless grabbing her own coffee cup. Kylo looks up, a confused frown on his face until Rey lifts her coffee up. 

“Why?”

“I can fend for myself just fine,” she says, doing the exact opposite of what she’s saying by taking a sip of the hot liquid. Kylo tracks her lips as they lower to the cup then away.

“Never said you couldn’t,” he says, grabbing his own styrofoam cup and giving her a once over as if judging whether she’s truly capable. Rey squares her shoulders and tilts her chin up in silent defiance, which only makes him snort around his cup, a tiny smile twitching around the edges of his mouth, teasing her without even saying a word. His constant feeding her has become a running joke to him by now. She keeps telling him to stop and he just keeps giving her self-satisfied smiles.

Rey rolls her eyes. “So what now?”

“Maz already took care of calling the heating and electric company while we were out yesterday. They should be here soon to do maintenance.” He pulls out his phone to look at the time, Rey’s eye catching on the spiderwebbed cracks on his screen. That’s right, he’d chucked it at a boulder. Kylo runs his thumb over it before looking up at her. “I should replace this.”

Rey says nothing, not wanting to remind him of the reason why he’d broken it to begin with. Then Kylo gives her another look and tilts his head.

“Let’s make ourselves scarce,” he says, walking away. Rey blinks. “Come on.”

Rey chases after him, putting her shoes on at the door in a hurry, barely managing not to spill coffee on herself as she follows out the pub and closes the door behind her. She looks back at it, her New Yorker in her itching at knowing he’s leaving the door unlocked.

“Aren’t you going to lock that?” she asks.

“Small town. Everyone knows everyone. And there’s nothing for them to steal in there, really.” He says, glancing at her over his shoulder before nodding ahead.

Well, there’s her _very expensive bag_ , but she doesn’t say that, huffing at his shoulder blades as he guides them around the corner and they arrive at Maz’s door. Rey carefully avoids looking at the spot where she’d broken down only a day ago, choosing instead to focus on the chocolate lab currently plopped on the porch next to the sweet, elderly Maz.

“Good morning,” Maz calls out, eyes twinkling and a bright smile on her face. That smile speaks of knowing, of knowing more than Rey could ever imagine a single person should; bright, sharp eyes swinging from Kylo’s face to Rey’s, tilting her head.

“Good morning,” Rey and Kylo call out in unison, walking up the porch steps.

“Say hello, Chewie,” Maz instructs. Chewie thumps his tail, eyes still closed, and Rey can’t help the smile on her face as she crouches and immediately sets about petting the dog without even asking this time. Maz’s smile warms further, watching her closely.

“Feeling better, child?” Maz asks. Rey chews on her lip, turning to her and offering a quivering smile.

 _Does_ she feel better? She can hardly tell. She’s still hurt, but… Sure. She feels… _better_ … sort of. She’d vented her frustrations rather, well, energetically last night. Rey glances at Kylo, who’s busy digging in his pocket for his keys, a flush of heat immediately working its way up her collarbone towards her face.

 _Energetically, alright_.

If she concentrates hard enough she can still feel his lips on her jaw, on her neck, still remembers him asking her if she felt wanted now, his voice soft just at the edge of her consciousness before she’d inevitably fallen prey to her exhaustion. She can feel his fingers on her hips and in her hair, his teeth tugging on her lower lip like phantom touches that had sapped her of her fury, kissing her in a way that made her stomach feel funny.

Rey clears her throat, shaking her head to clear it away from the rather abrupt turn her thoughts had veered off to, choosing to focus on Maz instead.

“I guess,” Rey replies lamely. Maz reaches out and pats the top of her shoulder affectionately.

“Well, any time you need to talk,” Maz offers, giving Kylo a pointed look. “You too, young man.”

Kylo grunts and drops his keys in Maz’s hand, some sort of unspoken agreement between the two of them as Maz pockets it without a word and asks them if they want to stay for tea.

“Maybe some other time,” Kylo says, extending his hand to Rey for her to get up. Rey looks at it for a moment before grabbing it, letting herself be pulled up. “We have some things to do first, and supplies to clean out that dump.”

Maz laughs like it’s some joke she’s intimately familiar with then shoos them off, waving them off her lawn and once more reminding Rey that she’s welcome _anytime!_ For any reason.

“Is she always that way?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at Maz and waving back as she follows Kylo out the front gate, feeling a little too much like Maz had read her like an open book.

“What way?”

“I felt a little naked back there,” she admits. Kylo looks at her from the corner of his eye, amusement clear on his face. Rey suddenly regrets her choice of words.

“Oh. That. You’ll find that there’s very little one can hide from her, much to everyone’s displeasure.” Kylo points her back towards the pub, to the cherry red car parked on the gravel road. “Shall we?”

“Where on earth are we even going?”

“The harbor,” Kylo says, opening the door for her to get in then walking around and dropping himself into the driver’s seat, finally turning to look at her. He’d been… avoiding it, she thinks. “I figured we need supplies. I need a new phone, and you need clothes.”

The thought of Kylo avoiding looking at her immediately flies out the window, replaced with a sort of _scoff out loud and take offense_ knee-jerk reaction to his comment.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Rey squawks, earning herself yet another infuriating smirk.

“Nothing, except we’re about to take on a fixer-upper and you’ve been rotating through the same five or so pieces of clothing,” he comments, and if Rey had thought her blush before had been obvious, this one takes the cake.

He’d _noticed_. Had been paying close attention, even. The idea of Kylo keeping tabs of her outfits, combined with the multitude of times he’d been far too close to said pieces of clothing for comfort, make her shift in her seat. Sure, she’d chosen to stay, but she figured she’d work out the details later. Before she can snap off some witty comeback, Kylo turns the ignition on and pulls out.

“Wait! I don’t have my wallet with me.”

“Consider it part of your welcome-aboard signing bonus,” Kylo steers them out of town fast enough to kill her idea of just jumping out, choosing instead to throw on her seatbelt and glare.

“You have really got to stop doing that.”

Kylo chuckles. “Sure, princess.”

Rey narrows her eyes. The last time he’d called her princess, she’d nearly decked him. “I’m serious.”

Kylo looks at her, his expression softening for a moment. “Just let me do this. I’d hate to ruin your belongings while you help _me_ out. Didn’t you say you had put yourself in a bit of a tight spot coming here to begin with? Accept the kindness, Rey.”

Accept the kindness, he says.

She’d been accepting his kindness for weeks now. Rey worries at her lip, looking out the window. She knows what he’s trying to say, knows it because she can see it in him as if he were the natural, opposite side of the coin. He’s the same. She’s not one to accept kindnesses, has never gotten used to people being nice because there had _never_ been nice people, not until Finn; Finn who isn’t around to be nice at the moment, so Kylo Ren has taken it upon himself to step up to the plate. Rey sighs.

“Fine.”

And so they find themselves down at the harbor, Kylo walking at a languid pace and Rey trying not to stare. She ends up staring anyway, the place bustling with energy and people, building painted in a riot of bright, eye-catching colors and small signs on doors and hanging off posts directing them towards all sorts of shops and bars — so many bars — that comprise the heart of Dingle; the smell of sea water on the wind and the sound of birds hawking in the distance. Rey turns to Kylo and grins, only to find him watching her with a sort of warmth she would have never imagined from this guy, taking her in with quiet wonder.

“This place is gorgeous,” she says, struggling not to sound a bit out of breath by it all. Kylo’s smile widens.

“I thought you’d like it.” He places a hand on her lower back and guides her down a side street. “Come on. Supplies are this way.”

They spend the next hour and a half loading up cart after cart with every kind of cleaning agent imaginable. Buckets, rollers, gloves, aprons, anything and everything they could need to clean, disinfect and polish the pub to a high shine. Then comes the paint, at which point Kylo nudges her towards the paint chips and asks her to choose. Rey outright refuses, arguing that it is _his_ pub, but Kylo only chuckles before giving her sad eyes.

 _You’re an artist_ , he says, appealing to the photographer in her with the biggest puppy eyes. If she didn’t know him as she does, she would have easily assumed him to be a sweet little angel and taken him home, as the saying went. Except she knows him, and so she punches him in the arm to get him to drop it and he laughs, but Rey dives into the paint chips with excitement anyway after that. She ends up choosing soft pastels for the inside, bright, cheery colors that remind her of sunshine and air. For the outside she chooses a bright, intense, inviting blue the color of the sea on that very day. Satisfied with her selections, Kylo buys way too many buckets of the stuff and piles them on into their cart. He leaves her at the register with his card while he goes to grab the car, then, watching the bagging girl staring after the obviously gorgeous Ren as he exits.

The cashier, a much older, matronly lady swats the bagging girl in the arm and hisses at her to get back to work and stop staring _in front of the mister’s wife_ , by which she means Rey, giving said _wife_ a bright smile.

“Forgive her, she’s young,” the cashier apologizes. “You have quite a looker there.”

Rey clears her throat to move the lump sitting at the base of it, turning pink and shifting her weight. “Thank you.”

The universe must think itself hilarious. Here she is, having chased after a dream that crashed and burned only just yesterday, and it’s Kylo Ren who gets to be her _husband_ , if only by mistake and association. She’s not even wearing a ring, though. Just as Rey opens her mouth to correct the lady, however, Kylo swings back in at a trot and immediately stands by her side, hand automatically landing on her lower back and breathlessly leaning in to apologize for taking so long. Both the bagging girl and the cashier avert their eyes, one with a deflated look on her face and the other with an indulgent smile.

Rey flushes, realization hitting her in full force. _That’s_ how they keep getting the impression that she and Kylo are a couple. Kylo seems oblivious to it, instinctively touching her just because he can, conditioned to it in such a short amount of time; even though the difference in how his hand remains on her lower back and how he skirts the edges of his credit card to avoid touching the cashier’s hand is glaringly obvious to Rey. When had it begun?

Rey chews on her lip as they take their purchases out, load up the car, then continue down the street looking for a place to eat. When he once again does it, guiding her hand to waist towards an outside table at a small restaurant, Rey shakes her head. She’s reading too much into this.

Kylo orders a beer and Rey orders some ginger ale, side-eyeing the alcohol and ordering the blandest thing off the menu. She glances at Kylo begrudgingly, because _he_ doesn’t seem to be having even so much as a headache, enviously glancing at the ray bans hanging from his t-shirt.

She finally breaks after a while.

“Can I borrow those?”

Kylo’s shit eating smile makes her instantly regret it, but he passes them along and Rey settles in contentedly behind their shade, ignoring the way he chuckles at the way they dangle off her nose. “Bug eyes.”

“Bug off,” she retorts, glaring at him then at her food.

“Ohhhh, touchy,” he teases, knocking back his drink. “Are you still not feeling well?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, pushing her plate away mostly untouched. At least, she’d _been_ fine. Until the smell of food had hit her nose and suddenly her body had decided she wasn’t quite done being punished for the previous night’s bender. Rey looks away for a moment, deciding that people watching while Kylo finished his food would be more entertaining than self-flagellation by trying to eat. She quickly starts noticing the small glances, the stolen head-to-toe looks of admiration Kylo keeps earning himself while he devours his sandwich.

She looks back at him again, tilting her head. Sure, she’s willing to admit, he’s handsome… in a sort of avant-garde, hastily paired up features kind of way, each one jumping at her more starkly than the last. The long, full lashes; the beautiful golden brown eyes; the high cheekbones and that ridiculous crown of glorious jet black hair.

Yet his nose is too long, and his ears too big, and his chin is strangely angular, all of those features sitting oddly together yet not unpleasantly so.

It’s when he looks up that she discovers the reason they’re staring. It’s not how his features gel together but how he carries himself. Kylo arches an eyebrow at her, intelligent eyes boring into her.

“You’re staring.”

Finding herself caught like a deer in headlights, Rey defaults to sass, pushing his shades up into her hair and out of her face. Kylo watches appreciatively, somehow looking like he enjoys seeing his shades perched on her head.

“I was just trying to find out what all these girls seem to find so compelling,” she says, trying to look at him down her nose. Kylo scoffs.

“Yeah? And what’s the verdict?” he jokes, leaning back and crossing his arms in front of his chest. The leather of his jacket creaks, stretches, trying to contain the bulging muscles underneath. His eyebrow’s cocked and she’s got his full attention, the right corner of his lips lopsided _up_ in that infuriating smirk of his that she's starting to memorize. She feels his legs stretch under the table, long limbs caging her chair in as he makes himself comfortable.

Rey pinches her nose. “I can’t quite see it.”

Kylo throws his head back and laughs, a full belly laugh that turns head and startles a few pigeons. The birds take off, but Rey’s eyes are on Kylo’s massive shaking shoulders, then he straightens and runs his fingers through his hair, giving her a wicked little smile, eyes full of delight as he picks up the rest of his sandwich.

“Ouch, Miss Jakken. You wound me,” he teases, stuffing the rest of his food into his mouth. Rey snorts.

“You got plenty of fans here, ask one of them.”

“What, jealous?”

Rey chokes on her ginger ale. When she finally manages to clear her airways, her eyes sting a little. Maybe it’s the sunlight. “Please.”

Their banter devolves into immature jabs at each other for the remainder of the meal, Rey once again lowering the Ray-bans until both her drink and his are gone. It’s a welcome reprieve.

“So, where next?” she asks as Kylo pockets his wallet and they exit the restaurant.

“Now we go wherever you want for clothes.”

“What about your phone?” she asks.

Kylo shrugs. “We have all day and I’m in no particular hurry.”

“Okay…” she says, then rounds on him. “You’re trying to distract me.”

 _Accept the kindness_.

Kylo only gives her a mild look. “Whoever said that? I’m running errands.”

Right.

Errands.

Kylo Ren is so full of shit. And, surprisingly, Rey finds her gratitude indebted to him for it. He extends a hand for her to walk ahead into the sunny outside. The second she does, Rey wishes she had shorts on. Summer had suddenly started to creep up on them.

 _Well, I guess some clothes wouldn’t be so bad_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a quieter break before things start ramping up again (oh boy, oh boy, oh boy), and look at that, little Rey is finally starting to take the blinders off. 
> 
> Thanks to all of you who are still reading and commenting. I write for you guys, you keep me going, those comments in my inbox basically making my days and giving me the boost I need some days when writing just isn't easy. ILU. Thank you.


	28. Shorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to pining-central.

He regrets offering to buy her clothes the second Rey comes out in shorts and a light cotton shirt she’d chosen from one of the racks in the small boutique they’re currently in, suddenly seeing far more skin than he’d expected to see. Kylo likes to think of himself as a grown man who can keep his cool — most of the time, anyway — but after Rey had sat perched on his lap the previous night letting him kiss her silly, any inch of skin she displays in open air is one more inch of skin he can’t seem to keep his eyes off of.

He’s turning into a hormonal teenager. He _knows it_ , and yet he can’t stop staring. Which is stupid, really, considering that he’d _just_ pledged that very morning that he would once and for all stop himself from allowing this… whatever this attraction to Rey is… to develop any further.

He inhales deeply through his nose, out through his mouth, and tells himself she’s only staying three weeks.

In her arms are the clothes she’d previously been wearing now neatly draped over her forearm. _It’s warm_ , she’d said. Kylo’s starting to feel a little too warm inside his clothes himself, though it’s certainly not because of the weather.

“Did you get everything you need?” he asks, grabbing the rest of the bags and standing up.

He’d been egging her on to grab what she needed ever since stepping into the first store, and Rey had kept giving him shy glances, trying to back out and grumbling about hating shopping. But he’d noticed the way her eyes would light up at the sight of pretty clothes even as she’d snorted and told him she preffered thrift stores to boutiques so, so much for hating shopping. He could imagine why she preferred thrift stores, though, but he’d smartly kept his mouth shut. Eventually he’d worn her down, telling her she needed to look presentable for their soon-to-be clients and happily pointing out items he thought would look good on her. That had convinced her more than anything else he could have said, and two hours later Kylo and Rey walk out of the last store ladden with bags and boxes full of clothes for any kind of weather shy of snow. Of course she’d chosen to wear a skimpy pair of shorts and a sleeveless top _now_ though.

He catches the groan in the back of his throat and glues it there, refusing to let her hear it.

Rey smiles at his previous question, thanking him quietly as they start their long trek back to the car. “I’ll pay you back.”

Little Rey refuses to be indebted to anybody.

“You can pay me back by being an excellent hostess,” he says, sidestepping a gaggle of kids running down the sideway. It brings him closer to her and Rey suddenly steps aside, keeping a safe amount of space between them. He frowns at the suddenness of her avoidance. “Everything alright?”

Rey startles. “Huh? Oh! Yeah. I’m fine.”

His frown intensifies, yet the longer he worries the more he finds himself staring at her mouth, feeling the ghost of her skin under his fingertips, wishing he could just—

_Get a hold of yourself!_

He refuses to look anywhere but ahead for the rest of their way back. Then the car gets loaded and they step into an electronics store, and by the time his data is transferred and he’s given a glorious new phone with an even more glorious non-cracked screen, Kylo’s starting to sweat in his spot because Rey keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs, smooth tan skin shifting and bringing his attention to it though she hardly seems to notice, and he wishes little Kylo would stop trying to get involved in all this.

She’d woken up something in him last night that he would have rather left sleeping. As easy as flipping a switch, and she’s entirely unaware. She’s unaware and he’s always had a bad habit of letting his emotional instincts drag him by the nose, this time to the very edge of a precipice he’s not sure he’d be able to crawl out of again. He tells himself it’s because it’s _been a while_ , but no other pair of legs seem to distract him as thoroughly when he lets his eyes wander in the crowd. Any other time he’d just call it blue balls and move on, but that’s a level of crassness he’s not willing to stoop down to at the moment, even if she’s starting to give him a weird leg fixation.

Rey looks at him, frowning, and Kylo’s quick to clear his expression.

“Ready to go?” she asks. He blinks.

She and the sales guy at the counter are both staring at him, small frowns on their face. Rey’s already out of her chair, the sales guy is already done with them…

 _Aaaaaaand I’ve been sitting here like an idiot, staring. Smooth, Kylo_.

He hops off the chair with a huff, careful not to touch her this time as he guides her out of the store.

It had been easy to ignore the pull all day long, but now that she’s in this state of undress it’s rather hard to concentrate. Kylo thanks the skies that the weather won’t get much hotter than this from here on out, and silently prays for cooler weather soon, if only to calm the flaming heat creeping up his torso, the itching down his fingers demanding that he make skin to skin contact with the little brunette next to him. He tries his best to keep his eyes to himself for the rest of the afternoon.

By the time they get back to their small pub and unload the car, it’s well into the afternoon. Rey flips the light switch and both of them let out relieved sighs when the lightbulbs flicker to life. They make a walk through the place, inspecting all the rooms and taking stock of what would need to be done, then walk back into the kitchen.

They have a _lot_ of work to do. It _might_ just take them three weeks, if not more, and if Rey decide s to leave then it would be up to him after that.

Just as the thought crosses his mind, a phone vibrates. Not his phone, but the one on the counter where Rey had left it that morning. He looks at it, lips pursed as Rey takes a single glance at the screen and then walks away from it. He steals a look, sees Finn’s number disappear and the ten missed calls notification show up, then follows her back out into the pub floor.

“Rey,” he begins, unsure of why he’s about to take it upon himselfto reason with her. Why he _continually_ keeps doing so. 

Perhaps it’s because she’d tried _so hard_ to get the guy. Perhaps it’s because she’d tried so hard to help Kylo himself , then seeing their roles reversed, Rey ignoring her phone while Kylo keeps snatching glances. Rey turns around and glares at him for all she’s worth, the hurt he’d seen the previous night flickering over her face before she has enough sense to stomp down on it. It’s enough to make him keep his mouth shut.

“I know,” she says, deflating. “I’m just…”

He knows better than to pry, so Kylo does the _only_ thing he can do. He breaks the prolongued silence by attempting to distract her again.

There’s a small detached part of his consciousness that floats above him, getting an eagle’s eye view of the situation, and quietly comments that he’s turned into the biggest, most disgusting pile of sentimental mush in the world, contorting himself to fit the needs of this girl to please her; something he had never done for anybody, not even Katherine. Kylo shoves it away in irritation.

“There are boards to take down.” Kylo says, moving to their supplies and grabbing two hammers. “Want to help?”

Rey throws herself into it with enthusiasm, yanking out nails and sending them flying across the cobbled steps outside as they go window by window and remove the shuttered boards. A few hours later they’ve both worked up a sweat, Kylo having shed his jacket and rolled up his tshirt sleeves to his shoulders. He catches Rey glancing at his biceps every once in a while and a sick part of him thrills in knowing _he’s_ affecting her, even if in such a small way, because he’s petty and his misery _loves_ company. Payback for her damn shorts.

He wipes sweat off his face on his forearm and leans back against the wall, staring at the hammer in his hands while Rey crouches by his side, slender arms glistening with a sheen of sweat as she tries to cool off. It had been a lot of boards to remove.

He’s starting to lose his mind.

And it would only get worse over the next week, because no matter how hard he tells himself that this attraction is only born out of dire circumstances, out of sheer loneliness, he keeps snatching glances at her as they work, as she bends, as she tucks her hair behind an ear, and he’s not entirely sure _what_ this attraction is supposed to be other than his stupid body reacting as if pre-programmed to orbit her like he’s orbiting the damn sun. And every night she quietly slips into his bed, and though he tries to remind himself of the reasons why she does it, why she fears the dark and the things that go crawling in it, he inevitably finds himself wrapped around her body the next morning.

They both act like it doesn’t happen, until eventually Rey stops looking guilty in the morning and Kylo stops wishing she’d sleep in her own bed and starts wishing she’d move in closer. It’s an effort of herculean proportions not to lean in and tuck that stray bit of hair behind her ear for her, or lean in too close to inspect the color swatches she haphazardly brushes onto the walls. He has to breathe deep through his mouth then clench his jaw when she _asks_ him to teach her how to properly chop vegetables, since the last time she’d tried it had been a magnificent mess. He wrap s himself in behind her and feels her heart beating against his chest, large fingers wrapped around hers, and Kylo Ren reminds himself that he’s _supposed to be a grown man_ while holding onto his desire to lean into the back of her neck in a death grip. For the rest of that first week Rey demands to cook dinner, angling her ridiculously cute chin up at him and telling him she’s had enough of him always being the one providing meals.

So bossy.

He kind of likes it.

So Kylo sits back every night and finds out that, with a little guidance, she’s a pretty damn good cook. He starts looking forward to those meals, and it feels like they’ve slipped back into the same domesticity they’d shared at Martin’s house, and he shouldn’t be enjoying it as much as he is.

Every night after dinner they take a small walk around the town to relax, and the neighbors are all starting to take notice so they seek sanctuary over at Maz’s, drinking tea spiked with bourbon because Maz refuses to have it any other way at night. The first two nights he’d groaned that alcohol was involved, but Rey seemed to be handling it fine, so _fine_ , he’d indulge. Their slow walks back home every night are spent chuckling at nothing and everything while Maz’s ring keeps burning a hole in his pocket.

Oh, he hasn’t forgotten about that damn ring. Not for a single minute, but there’s no time to bring it up, or the _right time_ to be specific, and so the more nights pass the longer Maz stares at Rey’s awfully bare hands and then pins Kylo down with a disapproving stare, like a mother who knows her child’s been awfully naughty and refuses to listen. It makes him shift in his seat uncomfortably the whole time, though Maz is quick to entertain Rey.

Finn doesn’t come up for those first seven days, though certainly not because of Kylo’s lack of trying. Rey’s Knight in Shining Armor, as Kylo has taken to calling this guy whom he seems to think of quite often without even knowing what he looks like, keeps calling her every night and being resolutely ignored. And Kylo keeps using _the boyfriend_ — well… ex-boyfriend, but that’s a minor detail— as a shield between himself and completely giving into his basest of desires. It’s slowly driving him mad.

And the worst part of all it’s that she’s _so damn oblivious_ to it, too busy wrapped up in her own pain over her break up when he catches her sometimes sitting under the willow tree, staring off into the distance, palming her phone as if she’s trying to gather up the courage to finally answer it.

When he sees her that way his chest twists, and he _really_ wishes it wouldn’t. But by now it’s his third week wrapped up in Rey, in her light and her go-getter attitude, in her smile and her warmth; her determination and her cheer, always putting on a brave front even when he can tell she’s sad. Physically waking up tangled up in her limbs, the smell of her on his nose, of her stupid flower shampoo and that hint of vanilla on her skin from whatever lotion she picked up on their harbor trip— well, it’s hard to get a bearing on his senses.

He tries to tell himself he’s rebounding from a painful break up, tries to tell himself she’s doing the same, but he’s too cowardly to discuss it with her so instead he lets himself get dragged along, mentally ticking down the days to when she’ll inevitably pack up and go and leave him. Why give the girl a ring when she’d have less than two weeks left as of the next day?

That evening they make their round around the town, and thankfully Rey’s wearing more clothes against the chill coloring the sky as it transitions from sunset to twilight. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, a thought dashing past his mind that it’s a little unfair how good she looks. People pass them by on their way home, most of them doing double-takes as recognition flickers in their faces, whispers of ‘ _Isn’t that Ben?’_ floating past his ears, but nobody dares approach when he looks to be busy with a pretty girl on a lovely evening. Which is perfectly fine with him, really. He’s not ready to start going on multiple trips down memory lane or having to explain to strangers who Rey is, the reminder bringing his attention to the ring that’s been  sitting in his pocket like a brick for over a week now. He sighs. Rey turns to look at him.

“Are you okay?” she asks, head tilted in that adorable way of hers. Which he shouldn’t be noticing.

_What is even happening to me?_

Kylo rubs his hand against the back of his neck, trying to work out the tension that’s settled there.

“Perfectly fine,” he says, staring ahead. “It’s just been a long day.”

Rey gives him a sympathetic smile, thinking he’s exhausted. And well, he _is_ exhausted, but not just physically. His feelings have been performing pirouettes for weeks now and he’s drained; any other time he would have welcomed it, but this time the emotional acrobatics don’t seem to want to stop just because he’s tired. He should have long ago tried to put some distance between them, starting with their new sleeping arrangement. But Rey only seems happy — or at least less sad — whenever he’s around her, so he’d been contorting himself just to see that smile on her face, both relishing and drowning in the ache it produced in his chest. The only  other time she’s happy is when she’s working, so they’d both thrown themselves into their tasks with vigor, getting up early and working until the sun set with few breaks.

“You’ll get the hang of rewiring those soon, I promise,” Rey says, thinking he’s talking about all the rewiring they’ve taken on. He’d already nearly electrocuted himself a handful of times by accident, with Rey both laughing at him for his clumsiness, scolding him for his stupidity, and doting on him like an indulgent teacher. It turns out where the girl had been horrible at chopping vegetables, she’s a master at fixing things. He remembers her words about having to do the landlord’s work and Kylo once again pats his weeks-ago self for offering her to stay.

“If I don’t burn my hands off first,” he grumbles and Rey chuckles, then she lets out a really obnoxious groan.

“I’m hungry!” she declares. “Should we go back and make something?”

He glances at her for a moment before looking ahead, their usual walking path coming up on the block’s bend. There’s a third occassion in which he can truly see her smile on full display, wide and blinding. Whenever he brings her to the harbor. They had made several trips there for supplies, and every time he’d watched her become lighter, more vibrant, a flower blooming right before his eyes. The sea and salt in the air, the islands in the distance, the noise of the town. Those seemed to be the only things that made her fully forget her troubles. So he’d found himself bringing her along for even the smallest of supply runs, things he could do by himself just fine, if only to watch his flower bloom all over again.

He shakes his head.

_You’re such a fucking sap, Kylo._

“How about we go to the harbor?” he asks. Rey frowns, turning to him.

“Did we forget something the last time?” she asks. He smiles.

“No, we didn’t. But the pubs are open, the food is good, and we haven’t had a true break in over a week.” He knows it sounds a little less like a break and a little too much like a date. Rey smirks at him, reading him like a book.

“Are you asking me on a date, Ren?” she teases just like she’s taken to doing about everything. Once the realization set in that she wouldn’t be disappearing in a puff of smoke for at least three weeks, they’d fallen into this weird zone where friendly banter and sexual tension — on his part, at least, since Rey’s still as unaware as always — coexist together. Kylo grunts.

Kylo has tried to live by a single rule ever since meeting this girl aboard that airplane to Dublin: _Keep your mouth shut_.

He’s broken that rule more times now than he can count.

“Do you want it to be?” he asks, voice dropping before he can stop himself. When confusion flashes across her face, quickly replaced by a soft pink to her cheeks, Kylo adds one more tick to his impressive track record of fucking up. He clears his throat, playing it off as another witty remark with that one smirk he knows drives her batty. “Relax, duckling. I’m hungry too and you haven’t seen the night life, yet.”

Three weeks and change. This woman has crawled under his skin and made a home of herself there in less than a month. He watches her shoulders relax, then lift, the high color of her cheeks nevertheless making itself semi-permanent on her face.

“Do they have burgers?” she asks, eyes bright. Her stomach grumbles on cue.

Kylo chuckles. “It’s Ireland, Rey, not a dystopian backwater world. They have burgers.”

‘Perfect!”

And so they find themselves at the harbor twenty minutes later, Rey walking with a spring in her step and Kylo following languidly behind on their way down the streets. Every time her eyes land on the bright buildings she makes it a point to stare, sometimes pointing out to him what a lovely picture it would make and then grumbling to herself that she wishes she had her camera.

Two weeks to go. He shouldn’t have admitted to himself that he’s attracted to her in the first place.

He lets her pick the pub, a hole in the wall, really, which she picks only because the naked mermaid on the sign amused her. Rey walks past the old, shiny jukebox and towards the seats at the back, picking a corner where she can watch everything and everyone, sliding into the booth and then making space for him. Kylo squeezes himself in slowly, his knees knocking on the table, and calls over a waiter for a menu. Rey tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She’s wearing it half up today, the top half in a bun that comically sways every time she moves. She’d taken to rotating her hairstyles, and he’d kept track of the odd choice of three buns down her head, the high topknot she’d put it in during hot days, and this new addition. Kylo exhales, looking away from the fingers still hovering absentmindedly by her ear.

Such a goddamn sap.

 _It’s physical. Purely physical_.

That reminder is the only thing that helps him sleep at night. Otherwise he’d have to admit that he’s falling hard, fast, and with no parachute, as though her sudden breakup with Prince Charming had hit on the GO green switch. And it’s all her fault, with her perfect smile and cute button nose, and that bell like voice and twinkle in her eye, and those idiotically gorgeous legs that went on for miles. Kylo rubs the back of his neck again, fingers grabbing onto the hair at the nape of it and tugging to make himself concentrate. He looks at the menu.

 _It’s because she’s all you’ve had for three weeks_.

Which is true. Outside of his short visits with Maz, most of which Rey is around for, he currently only interacts with Rey, breathes the same air day in and day out, and has nobody else to talk to. Maybe it’s because he’s lonely without Katherine… except he hadn’t thought about Katherine once until this very moment, as a single reminder of why he _hadn’t_ thought about Katherine. A matter of thinking about the elephant in the room when told not to think of said elephant. Kylo rubs his face and exhales deeply through the nose. Rey turns concerned eyes on him.

“If you’re that tired we can just go back.”

Cute duckling, worrying about him.

“I’m fine.”

They waiter comes back around and Rey orders a rootbeer and a burger, Kylo orders some fancy beer he barely glanced at off the menu and a bacon burger as well, sitting back to wait and listening to the music.

It switches to a Bon Jovi song. Rey snorts.

“I’m starting to hate that song.”

Kylo plays closer attention. _Livin’ on a Prayer_. He tilts his head, his only association to that song and Rey having been when they danced. His ears turn hot immediately, remembering what happened _after_ , but Rey’s only scowling at the jukebox.

“Why?”

Rey looks at him then gives him a sheepish smile. “It was on when I decided to turn the car around and board a plane to Ireland.”

Kylo’s brows rise. He listens to the lyrics and Kylo can see how it might have swayed her. Except the longer he listens the more certain parts of it start to apply to _his_ situation with her now, not necessarily hers with Finn. He clears his throat, trying not to start hating it on principle, too.

He’s got to stop. She’ll leave in two weeks, and his nacent obsession with this girl must be nipped in the bud before it can go anywhere else. Kylo may seem like a perfectly composed human being on the outside — aloof, even — but he’s becoming nothing but a teenager on the inside. He’s no longer a teenager. When had it become so hard to get a grip?

_God, you’re an idiot._

Rey snaps him out of his mental flogging session when the food comes around, snatching a fry from his plate despite hers being full. She’s both greedy with food and predisposed to stealing and scavenging, but he finds it stupidly endearing for some reason. He knocks back a gulp of his drink, pushing some fries into his mouth though he’s nowhere near as hungry as he’d said he was. Then her phone vibrates where she’d placed it face down on the table. His eyes snap to it, unwelcome dread curling in his gut, inexplicable and uninvited.

Rey stares at it, burger halfway to her mouth and hovering in the air.

It’s Prince Charming’s ringtone. He should really pick a different nickname for the guy, but that had been the first thing he’d thought of back when he’d _just_ met her, and now he can’t stop.

“Aren’t you going to—“

“No.”

“He’s probably worried.”

“Good,” Rey says, taking a giant bite of her food and glaring at the phone as it rings and vibrates and generally attempts to scream for attention in front of her. Vindictive little thing.

“You’re avoiding him.”

“So what if I am?”

Kylo shakes his head, then smiles as the phone starts on its second round of ringing. It had been ringing on and off all week, Kylo and Rey having traded places on whose phone kept consistently going off and who would pointedly stare every time it did. It was about time somebody did something about it. If she wouldn’t, he would.

“Do you want me to help?” he asks. Rey looks at him, confused. He flashes her his teeth and Rey struggles to swallow her mouthful, eyes tearing up slightly.

“Help?” she asks, but then her eyes swing to her phone and her brows rise. Kylo grabs it before Finn can hang up and finally answers his call.

In reality, he’s curious. His life and _her_ life have been a mess for a while, and he’s only ever heard this guy in a voicemail. He’s curious.

Though maybe he’s about to shoot himself in the foot.

 _“Hello?! Oh my god, Rey! Thank the skies you—“_ Finn’s desperate voice comes through the phone. Kylo’s brows rise. The volume and Finn’s voice are so high that Rey can hear the conversation even over the music in the background.

“This isn’t Rey,” Kylo says, then waits, giving Rey a devious smile. Rey gapes, mouth torn between a smile and a grimmace. Finn’s tone immediately takes on a hard edge.

 _“Who are you? Why are you answering her phone?”_ Finn asks.

“This is Rey’s boss. She’s busy,” he says, and Rey takes another bite of her burger, watching him like a hawk.

 _“Oh! Wait, what’s her job? Nevermind, can you call her over?”_ Finn says, tone resentful after having remembered Rey had found herself a job in Ireland. Rey scoffs silently, munching on a fry.

“Sorry, buddy. She can’t talk right now. Too busy stuffing her—“ Kylo says then pulls the phone away from his ear, mumbling incoherently to the side to no one in particular. Let him stew.

“ _Too busy stuffing— stuffing her what?!”_ Finn shouts, outraged, “ _put her on the phone right now! Is she okay? I need to speak to her. And I don’t even know your name! I swear if you—“_

Rey starts thumping her chest, trying her hardest not to suffocate on her food as she stares at the phone in his hand with tears in her eyes, her face having turned three different shades of red. Kylo’s probably an idiot for joking that way, but ah, it feels good to exact a _little_ revenge.

“Sorry, Ah— Where were we? Do you have a message for her? I can pass it on.”

Finn starts talking so fast he almost sounds incoherent.

That’s when Rey finally manages to clear her airways and snatches the phone from his hand, bringing it to her ear. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse, and well… Finn can take that hoarseness for what he will.

“Hi, what do you want?” she bites. Her expression immediately sours, sadness and pain and _anger_ all displayed on her features. It’s to be expected, really. She’d been nothing but sad and angry for a week now.

“ _Rey! Oh God, Rey! Who was that asshole? Listen to me, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into—“_

Kylo snorts. Rey rolls her eyes, though.

“That’s my boss, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t call him an asshole.” Rey says defensively. Kylo tilts his head. Does that mean she’s stopped thinking of him as an asshole then? “And _what I’ve gotten myself into_ is none of your concern, Finn. You’re the one who told me we had some _thinking_ to do, needed some time apart, remember?”

She’s already forgotten all about her food, having pushed her plate away as she scowls at nothing in particular while Finn tries to apologize on the phone. She cuts him off immediately, though.

“If you must know, I work at a pub. I’m fine, and you can stop calling me now. I don’t think us talking helps us _think_ , don’t you agree?” God, but she’s vindictive when she wants to be. Then again, this is the same girl who'd stayed up sick until three in the morning fake-moaning to pay back Penny and Martin for their indiscretions. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you again when I’m ready to go back home, until then, enjoy Portugal. Bye Finn.”

She clicks off before Prince Charming can say anything. Rey visibly deflates in front of him.

“You okay?” he asks, pushing a fry around. Neither one of them is in the mood for eating now. Rey turns to him and smiles weakly.

“You really are an asshole,” she chides and once again he grins. Well, seems like she hadn’t changed her mind about him after all. Then she laughs. “But he deserved that.”

“Glad to help, miss Jakken.” He takes another swig, the alcohol burning on its way down. Rey stares at her plate.

“I don’t hate him, you know?” she mutters. Kylo nods. She’d made it perfectly clear that her angry tirade when drunk had been just that, an angry tirade that meant nothing in daylight with a clear head. “I’m just angry. And technically single, so why should I keep running to the phone when he calls? I have better things to do.”

“Well, that’s understandable.” He agrees, especially because he’d done the exact same thing after leaving LA. “You’re not beholden to anybody. Go wild, right?”

Rey looks at him and for a moment he thinks he must have imagined it when her demeanor shifts, her cheeks coloring and the pulse at her neck more pronounced, her eyes tracing his lips shyly before she turns her attention to her rootbeer.

“God I need something stronger than this.” She grumbles. Kylo passes her his bottle. When she downs its contents, he orders two more, making sure to get ones with a low alcohol level. He doesn’t need a repeat of the other night.

Eventually they both relax enough to actually finish their food, and once the tab is paid Kylo and Rey exit into the cool air. It turned very chilly, very fast. Kylo quietly passes her his jacket and she quietly accepts it, the two of them slowly walking down side roads until they find themselves at the harbor proper. Rey takes off her shoes the second she spies the sandy shore, and Kylo’s brain rings red alarm after red alarm that walking barefoot on the beach at night isn’t just _borderline_ a date anymore— it’s one of the most romantic things he could do with somebody. But Rey’s face is bright again, eyeing the waves as they kiss the shore, and he has no other option but to remove his shoes and follow.

Rey runs up to the water, standing just at the edge and letting the waves crash over her toes. Kylo stands a few feet behind, hands in pockets and thankful he chose a long sleeved shirt, watching Rey’s little half bun swaying in the moonlight when she turns to face him.

“Come over!”

“I’m good here, thanks.”

Rey pinches her nose. “Partypooper.”

He smiles but says nothing, content to watch. Rey once again faces the open sea, an icy halo over her as if she’d hung the moon herself. His insides twist, turn, churn, his ribcage feeling too small to contain all of his organs. Maybe he could delude himself, if only for a moment. Maybe it could just be his own quiet little secret, a memory made for himself to look at once she leaves. She doesn’t have to know. It would be pure, untainted by his more… _physical_ desires. A good thing to remember her by.

He rolls up the hem of his jeans quickly and steps forward, taking in the ocean and standing just far enough that he can’t feel her warmth, just to be safe. A little romance never hurt anybody. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 1st of March to all! To those who are also reading my other stories, [ADOT](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6771919/chapters/15477367) will be updated sometime by the end of this week and [Kindred](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9484292/chapters/21460334) should have an update the week after!


	29. Laundry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions are at an all time high. Somebody's bound to snap.

Rey’s second week with Kylo Ren arrives in the blink of an eye, or at least, that’s how it feels to her. She groans, spreading out on the hardwood floor and wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. Trying to ease an itch with paint-splattered hands isn’t easy.

Her muscles ache, her neck feeling as though she’d twisted her spine inside out after having spent hours with her head craned back in order to paint the wall edges closest to the ceiling, having fought Kylo on it with a game of Rock Paper Scissors and lost. Rey looks around the room, turning her head to take in the now airy space, aided by the bright sunlight bouncing off the fresh coat of pastel yellow paint. It looks pretty fantastic, especially in contrast with the gleaming white of the also just-painted ceiling. Her neck complains and she flinches, her eyes landing on Kylo as he makes his way towards her and flops on the floor by her side with a grunt.

“Five minutes,” he says. Rey wholeheartedly agrees.

Then he looks at her and smiles a private smile, eyes as bright as the sunlight filtering through the windows before he looks back up at the ceiling. Rey frowns.

“What?”

Kylo’s smile turns into a tiny smirk. “Nothing.”

She twists her head a bit further to get a proper look at him then flinches again, involuntarily letting out a small hiss at the sharp throb of her neck. Lesson learned. Kylo sits up, tilting his head at her before he grabs her hand and pulls her up with him.

“Turn,” he instructs, the authority in that single word making her stomach sommersault as she obediently turns her back to him. She clears her throat, parts thankful that she’s looking away from him so she can’t openly stare — something she’d been doing ever since the night at the harbor — and parts dismayed that she can feel his breath on the back of her neck, every deep lungful of air disturbing the little hairs there when he exhales. She almost jumps out of her skin when warm thumbs press right at the nape of her neck, large fingers cupping her jaw as he starts working her with circular motions.

Rey groans, her lids fluttering down to half mast before she once again snaps them open, working to cool down her cheeks and trying to get rid of the flush of heat that’s been forever threatening to take over whenever she finds herself in close proximity to Kylo. All of which would be bearable if not for the fact that she’d found herself staring ever since he’d asked her if she wanted their outing to the harbor to be a date, her mind hyperfocusing with sudden clarity on his every move. Worse yet, he’d caught her several times.

Rey tries to clear the sudden dryness away from her mouth and throat again, the sound turning into another half moan, half groan as he skillfully coaxes her muscles into giving in. It should be illegal for somebody to be that good at practically everything. It’s so very unfair, the way he seems to always have his shit together, cook delicious meals and — Rey adds one more tick to her tally — somehow also give amazing massages. Above her, Kylo chuckles, the combined breath and sound of him stealing the air from her lungs as they hit the back of her neck again.

“You should have said something sooner,” he says, kneading the bottom of her neck where it meets her shoulders, forcing her spine to straighten. “I could have taken over.”

Rey scoffs, trying against all might to keep from whimpering helplessly when he presses his thumbs on a particular knot. It still slips out though, so he kneads deeper. Immediately she’s glad she’s sitting on the floor instead of standing, her body trying to become boneless all at once despite her attempts to remain upright.

“You won fair and square,” she says, looking at the walls. “Plus you actually got way more done than I did if we’re going by overall area covered.”

Which is true. He’d muscled through the room, rolling the paint onto the walls in even, thin layers. She’d only tackled the trim.

One room down, twenty to go.

His fingers move onto her shoulders and Rey can’t handle it anymore, she visibly droops, very nearly falling back against his chest as she tries to press back into his hands, yearning for pressure. Magical hands. Illegal hands. This is the first massage of any kind she’s had in weeks and her body screams for more.

“Oh, right there,” she mumbles before realizing what she’d said, or rather, the tone in which she’d said it. Kylo’s fingers stop for a heartbeat before she hears him laughing again, low and breathy. Her eyes snap open and she looks up at him, then elsewhere hurriedly when she finds him staring back from under long lashes, his gaze unnervingly anchored on hers.

Her stomach does another backflip and she forces herself to _not_ shift her legs, not indulge the sudden jolting response her body gives to those confusingly beautiful golden brown eyes of his. God but she needs to stop staring.

She decides to focus instead on the walls, watching the dappled light from the windows dancing on the floor, trying her best to keep her whimpering to a minimum. Kylo dedicates himself to his task in earnest as if her silence has become a personal challenge. Every time a small sound escapes from her she can feel his satisfaction rolling off him, the kneading turning into gentle strokes as if to say ‘ _good girl’_ before once again focusing on working out a knot. So many minutes later she’s bowed over, forehead on her knees and no longer able to stay quiet while Kylo works down her spine. By the time she begs him to stop she’s got near tears in her eyes from how good that felt, but there’s only so much her blood pressure can take of him working her under his fingers.

Then his phone rings, and Rey can hear Maz over the speakerphone instructing them to come over at once. When she finally manages to get a hold of herself Kylo pulls her up to her feet with a proferred hand as though she weighs less than a feather.

“Come on, duckling,” he says, and Rey counts the extra handful of seconds it takes him to drop her hand. “Let’s see what Maz wants.”

It turns out what Maz wants to do is to feed them. By the time they get to her place they find the table heaped with food, Maz shoving them into their seats with far more strength than she lets on having. Rey happily obliges, piling up her plate and digging in while Maz chatters on happily, asking Kylo how the renovations are going.

“It’s been… an experience,” Kylo answers, and though he’s talking about renovations his eyes are pinned on her.

Rey frowns at him, mouth full of spaghetti until her cheeks bulge. His lips twitch up at the corner before he has enough sense to smother the smile, but before she can say anything Maz’s booming laughter startles her out of her train of thought.

“I can see that,” Maz says, twirling some spaghetti onto her fork. Rey tilts her head, feeling a little like she’s been left out of the joke before Kylo shakes his head and dips a napkin into his water, then reaches over the table and wipes at her face. Off comes a patch of yellow paint.

Oh.

OH!

They were laughing at _her!_ Rey scowls and Maz chuckles.

Then something curious happens. Maz turns to look at Rey and gives her a long once-over, taking in the haphazard top-knot and stray, wild hair coming out at odd angles; the sooty smudges from cleaning earlier and the yellow paint drips on her tshirt, eyes focusing on Rey’s dirty, abused hands for a moment with a small frown. Well, sure, Rey thinks, she’s not necessarily dressed to be seen in public but she’d been painting all day, _darn it_. Thankfully Maz does the same to Kylo, but where she’d looked at Rey with a calculating eye, she turns a disapproving one on Kylo. And then Kylo does something Rey would have never thought him capable of doing. He _fidgets_.

“I see you’re still dawdling,” Maz says as casually as humanly possible while bringing up a forkful of spaghetti towards her mouth and busying herself with it.

_What was that about?_

Rey’s expression twists in a silent question at Kylo, then at Maz, but the woman has nothing more to say and Kylo’s busy staring at his plate, his ears turning pink. Obviously she’s not getting any answers out of anybody. Only when Maz has gone through half her plate does she turn to Rey with a smile.

“So, Rey?” Maz begins. “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk! I want to know all about you. How on earth did you end up here? Just on vacation or—“

From the corner of her eye she can see Kylo making the kill-that-subject motion at Maz, hand swiping across his throat. Maz pointedly ignores it.

“I,” Rey begins, making herself smile. She finds that it somehow comes a little easier than she expected. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story.”

“Oh, I have time,” Maz tells her as she pats Rey’s hand gently. “It’s not very often I get visitors, and you showed up with this troublemaker of all people. I can’t wait to learn more about you, child.”

Kylo lets out a strangled grunt that finally makes Rey look up, the easy smile now gracing her face entirely genuine.

“I don’t know,” Rey says, tilting her nose at him as if judging him on his finer qualities. Kylo sits very still, brows high waiting on her verdict. “He’s not that bad. He may have a mouth on him sometimes but he’s kind and attentive,” she says, ticking off all the reasons she’d started to grow fond of the giant. “And funny.”

““Also a really good k— cook!“ Rey looks at Maz and grins to disguise the way her cheeks are turning hot. She’d almost said something about him being a good kisser without thinking. “Whoever gets him will be lucky.”

Maz’s face breaks into a kind smile, as if Rey had said something that pleased her greatly. “Yeah, I think so, too. If only he’d hurry up and put a ring on someone’s hand, that is.”

If a grown man could be said to be sulking, Kylo’s facial expression right now would be it. He looks like he wants the ground to swallow him. Rey giggles despite herself, earning herself such a dirty look she has to bite down on her lip _hard_ to keep from laughing outloud. Maz’s mother hen behavior may be a bit much, but it’s certainly endearing to Rey, who had grown up without that sort of thing.

“Well, it’s not like he doesn’t have choices,” Rey says, widening her eyes at Maz for emphasis. “You should see the gaggle of fans he’s got at the harbor. Plenty of cute girls.”

Maz tilts her head and eyes Rey with interest for a moment as if considering her words carefully. “I’d like to think he’s far more selective with his tastes. For as long as I’ve known him, he—“

“I’m _right_ here, you know?” Kylo says, apparently having tired of being discussed as if he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Maz waves a hand at him.

“Oh, we know, but this is _girl_ talk. You sit there and look handsome for us instead.”

This time Rey _does_ laugh. She can’t help herself. Not once in all the time she’s been around Kylo Ren has she seen him both so disgruntled and chastised in equal measures. Nor has she ever seen anybody talk to him as though he were nothing but a boy. Then again, considering the source…

“Alright, we’re going,” he says, obviously having had enough of being the butt of the joke as he pushes his chair back. “There’s work to do and I need to run the laundry to town yet,” he says, then remembers his manners at the last minute as he mumbles, “Thanks for the meal, Maz.”

Maz’s lips turn down disapprovingly. “Young people, I swear. Why are you wasting money in town when you can just bring it over here?” she hollers after him.

Kylo’s already walking out the door though, so Maz grabs Rey’s hand and pulls her closer, whispering in her ear. “You bring that laundry over here, you hear? I have a washer and drier you can use for free.”

Rey nods.

“Don’t mind him,” she tells the elderly woman. “He’s tired and acting like a baby.”

Maz chuckles. “Don’t I know it. Will you keep him in line?”

Somehow it feels like she’s formed a bond with Maz, one she’s never had with anybody else, much less somebody who inspires such familial fondness in her. She leans in to give Maz an uncharacteristic quick hug, telling her she’ll make sure to bring it over before bidding her goodbyes and sprinting after Kylo. She finds him on the porch, pouting.

Rey bites down to keep from smiling at it, clearing her throat to announce herself instead. Kylo looks at her and narrows his eyes, though not unkindly.

“Had your fun?” he asks. She can’t help the smile no matter how hard she tries. Kylo lets out a dramatic sigh in the face of her absolute cheek.

“Don’t be so hard on her,” Rey says, tilting her head towards Maz’s door. “She obviously cares for you! She just wants you to find somebody who’ll love you as much as I imagine she loves you.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he says, taking the porch steps down two at a time. “I have my work cut out for me with just you around.”

Rey scoffs. She knows he’s joking. Still, the words make her stomach do a weird flip, the implication that he sees her as a permanent fixation in his life doing funny things to her insides. She should have never allowed herself to kiss him willingly that one night.

“I won’t be around forever, though.”

Kylo remains silent, shoving his hands into his jean pockets as they start on their way back to the pub. It’s only after they cross the halfway point that he finally speaks.

“You could stay longer, though,” he says, eyes still ahead. Rey blinks up at him.

“Is that an invitation?” she asks, trying to make sure she heard him correctly.Kylo looks at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment before once again focusing on their path.

“If you want to, that is,” he says. “I could use the help.”

Rey studies his profile as they walk, hoping that he won’t guide her into a tree as she follows him blindly while considering his words. She hadn’t lied back at Maz’s place. Kylo Ren may have a bit of an attitude on him, especially upon first meeting, but the man _is_ kind. At least, he’s kind where she’s concerned. Far kinder than he needs to be. He says he needs the help, but she knows he could hire anybody he wanted to. Hell, he could hire a whole team of workers, yet continues to work tirelessly with her day in and day out. The only conclusion she can come to is that he’s doing it for her instead.

_Some girl will be very lucky one day._

Rey tries to imagine the day he gets over his ex, mends his heart and starts looking for somebody else, but the thought sits heavy on her chest so she lets it pass.

_Some lucky girl, indeed._

Rey looks ahead. “I’ll think about it,” she promises.

And she really does. It’s all she can think about for the rest of the week, really.

She thinks about it while painting the walls, Kylo’s playlist cycling through a rather impressive collection of rock songs without repeating a single one while they busy themselves over choosing colors and rolling out the paint. She thinks about it while laughing at him because he’d opened the attic trapdoor only to get buried under a bunch of falling junk. She thinks about _running_ while Kylo laughs at her as she screams at the top of her lungs when a tiny spider appears unexpectedly while she fixes some plumbing in one of the upstairs bathrooms. The thought of running doesn’t last long, though, because soon enough she’s thinking about staying again as they eat their chinese take out in the kitchen, Rey sitting on the kitchen island and Kylo standing against it so close his elbow almost brushes her thigh. She _certainly_ thinks of staying every night when Kylo, half asleep and no longer bothering to try and keep distance between them at night, simply turns around and wraps his gigantic arms around her, tugging her close. She’d have to sleep alone if she went home.

But then she feels guilty.

She feels guilty because all it’s taken is two weeks in Dingle for her to start seeking said warmth at night. She feels guilty because Finn’s name no longer appears on her phone, which allows her just enough space for her to start forgetting why she’s here to begin with. She feels guilty because she reminds herself that this arrangement is only borne of necessity, that she’s working with Kylo because she needs to be able to afford her plane ticket home, not because she finds herself enjoying the lazy evening walks and the harbor outings. Worst yet, she feels guilty because she can’t _stop_ staring ever since that stupid night, the one Rey can’t seem to be able to think of as anything but _not quite a date_ , not quite _just dinner_.

 _You’re single now. It’s fine to just relax_ , she reminds herself, but the reminder is painful.

Still, the more days pass the more she comes to terms with the fact that she’s no longer tied to anything. That she’d _chosen_ not to be tied to anything when she told Finn to stop calling. Sure, it had been done out of spite and anger, but as the minutes turn into hours, then into days, Rey realizes that having time and space to think hadn’t actually been such a horrible idea after all. She’d spent so much time chasing Finn with pin-point focus that she’d forgotten to look after herself, and though she’ll be forever thankful to Kylo for having stepped in, the realization that she’s back in control of things is exhilirating.

It means she has _choices_.

Terrifying choices, but choices nonetheless.

That night Kylo tucks her into his arms and though she’s sure it’s nothing but habit to him now, perhaps as easy as hugging a pillow, Rey’s heart stutters. It goes into overdrive when he feels it, cracking his eyes open in the moonlight and smiling a sleepy smile at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before closing his eyes. That smile. That smile seemed to be reserved for her, and she’s not sure whether he realizes it or not, but it’s starting to muddle her thoughts. She should have just sucked it up and slept in a different bed. But he’s warm, and solid and _there_ , the heft of his presence making the quiet, dark room feel safe. It’s hard for her to let go of that.

 _You’re single. It’s fine to just relax_.

This becomes her mantra.

Except she can’t relax. Not when later that night Rey wakes up to fingers lazily rubbing circles on her spine. Her eyes snap open to find that Kylo’s still very much asleep, his fingers moving as he lets out sigh after soft sigh, mumbling to himself. He’s dreaming, and whatever he’s dreaming of is now pressing into her lower back every time he strokes his thumb there. Rey fidgets, shifting farther away and screaming at herself to calm the fuck down, the sudden tingling between her legs both frustratingly exciting and extremely unwelcome. It eventually stops, but not before Rey feels her body demanding more attention. She gets up and goes take a cold shower, which soon turns into a pretty _hot_ shower when she finds herself having to take care of business with a little help from the detached shower head.

When she returns to bed she finds him awake, watching her silently before he pulls the sheets back for her to crawl in. Had he heard her? Rey had tried her best to be quiet. And she’s an idiot for crawling back in with him, but… well… it’s habit, now.

Perhaps that’s the moment she dooms herself.

He doesn’t say anything, just watches her quietly until Rey closes her eyes to avoid embarrassing herself further. Even then she can almost feel his eyes on her, her body warming up until she’s struggling to keep herself from breathing hard.

Then she hears it, the soft murmur accompanied by warm air caressing her cheeks.

“How long has it been?” Kylo’s deep baritone carries a shiver down her spine, making her physically shift, which doesn’t help because despite her shower and… well… taking care of business, that tingle has returned. She realizes in alarm it’s because of _him_ , not his previous touch. He’s not touching her _now_. Rey blinks.

“What?”

Kylo leans in closer, eyelids heavy and his nose almost brushing with hers as he repeats himself, slower this time, as if trying to make her understand. “How long has it been?”

Rey inhales sharply, trying to swallow the whimper caught in her throat, but Kylo isn’t backing away or even so much as blinking. It's been well over a month, but he doesn't need to know that. She tries to stammer out an answer.

“I—I don’t think that’s—“ she stutters, only to get cut off when Kylo hums to himself and wraps an arm around her waist, shifting her with practically no effort. He nudges her thighs with his bare knee, eyes locked on hers as he waits for permission, and Rey could _die_. But her core aches and throbs now, and she’s starting to feel _so_ very needy.

She tries to look away, to tell herself that this isn’t happening. Kylo presses his lips to her forehead, every word vibrating against her skin. “It’s fine, Rey. It’s just us.”

Rey pinches her eyes closed, heart hammering away at her chest, and Kylo chuckles. “It’s okay, duckling. Let me help.”

The _fucking_ endearment is what finally breaks her resolve. She’s needy and wants it and Kylo’s offering without judgement. Rey parts her legs, taking his massive thigh in offering and seating herself against it. She shifts until she’s half laying on top of him, Kylo’s hands steadying her at the waist, fingers squeezing into her skin. She can’t open her eyes, she can’t look him, doesn’t dare see the expression on his face as she girates her hips once and strokes herself against his skin, only the thin fabric of her underwear between them. Then she does it again, and again. And again.

By the time she collapses on top of him, both spent and panting hard, Kylo helps her down from her high by caressing her thighs, her back, gently stroking her hair. She buries her face into his neck, both mortified and blissed out.

“Don’t judge me tomorrow,” she whispers into his skin. Kylo chuckles.

“I was the one who offered,” he says, settling that argument before it begins.

Then a thought occurs to her and she snaps her head up, looking down at him. Kylo instinctively tucks her hair behind her ears to get a better look, studying her flushed cheeks and swollen lips with interest. An interest that has traveled all the way to his groin. She wets her lips, trying to gather her courage.

“Are you, ah—“ she starts, unsure of how to approach this. How does she even go about asking him if he wants her to reciprocate?

He seems to catch the hint from her nervousness, though.

“I’m fine,” He smiles, hesitating for a moment before leaning up and kissing the tip of her nose affectionately. “I should go clean up, though.”

Oh. Yeah.

He should go clean… her cheeks burn even hotter. He’s about to go clean off the mess _she’d_ left on him. If it weren’t for the state of bliss she’s currently in she would probably cry from how mortified she feels, despite it having been Kylo's idea when he offered to help her scratch that particular itch. He only smiles wider before shifting her off, getting up off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom. He spends _far_ too much time there. By the time he returns Rey fakes being asleep for all she’s worth, having decided that this is about as much awkwardness and sexual tension as she can take for one night.

Would she regret it tomorrow?

She tries not to think too hard on it as she falls asleep. Not thinking would be a welcome respite from the last so many days of her life. She starts making a mental list of all the things she needs to do in the morning instead, including snatching the laundry and taking it over to Maz’s before Kylo gets another chance to come up with an excuse to take it to the dry-cleaners in town.

Lists are safer to think about than the man currently snuggling himself in behind her. Rey has a feeling she may just have muddled things even further for herself, but it's hard to think objectively while her body's still floating in the high Kylo gave her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> =)
> 
> Initially I wanted to keep the story as a T rating, but I feel like we've gotten to the point where it deserves an M, if only because a lot of the themes discussed in this story are pretty heavy ones, and ...well... this chapter also happened. And seeing as we now are only 10 chapters out from completion, well... tensions are high ;)
> 
> Hope you all had a wonderful week and thank you for SO MUCH SUPPORT lately! I know it's a little dead what with exams and midterms for so many (and general Life for others), but I am always so very grateful to all of you who continue reading and taking the time to comment/talk to me about it here. I don't know that I would have gotten this far in if not for your support.


	30. Rubber gloves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Kylo, it's now or never, kid.

Kylo runs his fingers through Rey’s hair absentmindedly, listening to her breathing in the stillness of the air and taking in her sleeping face. He knows she’d faked being asleep for at least fifteen minutes after he’d returned to bed, her breathing not quite matching up to the peaceful expression she’d tried for after turning around, but he’d decided to wait it out anyway, content to just watch her.

Now that she’s asleep he’s finally free to think, something he couldn’t quite do just a little while ago.

Had he made the right decision?

 _Yes_ , his heart and brain clamor in unison before he even has time to entertain the alternative, his fingers unable to move away from her now that he’s had a taste.

Sure, he’d offered to help, not participate, but it had been an offer made selfishly anyway.

Kylo’s ears had perked up the moment he’d heard the water go in the bathroom at ridiculous o’clock at night, wondering what on Earth would have gotten into her until he heard the first little whimper. He’d almost missed it in the rush of water, but Rey had accidentally left the door cracked open just enough for the sounds to filter out.

He’d sat up immediately, licking his lips and leaning forward, not daring to get out of bed but not quite strong enough to make himself stay in it as yet another whimper had followed, followed by a soft drawn out moan that shook his very core and twisted his insides. By the time she’d come back to bed his blood had been boiling, skin feverish with the thought of her in that tiny little shower pleasuring herself. Yet he’d decided to stash his curiosity away anyway. His resolve had only lasted until Rey started to fidget once in bed, his brain immediately going on autopilot.

One moment he’d been telling himself she was _so_ very out of his reach, the next… well, the next is almost a blur.

Where once upon a time he had scrambled to get out of bed when she’d tried to move closer, this one time it’d been _him_ seeking her out— forget boundaries and the boyfriend, and every other self-imposed rule he’d made for himself. He’d felt her shift her weight to gain friction under the sheets and had acted without thinking, a sudden hunger pooling in the pit of his stomach at the way she kept working at her lower lip and glancing at him like maybe she wanted him.

He’s not stupid. He’s sure this will complicate matters in the morning, but his brain keeps replaying the moment on loop, unable to break away from her spell.

Him collecting her in his arms, pulling her closer, nudging her smooth thighs with his knee in hopes she would accept it. Rey finally giving in and straddling his thigh, the absolute warmth and softness of her catching him in a stronghold and refusing to let go. He’d nearly groaned at feeling her seated on him, that damp spot turning slick— God but she got so wet so fast. His fingers had _itched_ to just…

 _Just move in. Hook your fingers in the fabric. Move it aside—_ No. He’d offered to help, but by God if he made himself participate he wouldn’t be able to stop at just letting her scratch that itch of hers. He’d want all of it, all of _her_ , and that was a hell he would never be able to return from.

So instead he’d chosen to watch, eyes focused on her face. Her parted lips had called to him, every single little panted breath, every soft little mewling sound a note in a building melody. He’d settled his hands on her hips and dug in, grinding her down further after she had found the courage to start moving on her own, his chest stammering when the very same motion had made her throw her head back with a whine. He doubts she noticed it, too lost in her own pleasure.

His mouth watered the moment she started kneading her own breast, watching her fingers latch onto a nipple over a thin-threaded camisole still clinging to her skin from the heat of her shower, and when her head had dropped to rest on his collarbone as she eagerly chased her climax, mumbling ‘ _oh God_ ’ into his ear, it had taken an act from said God for him not to just soil himself right there. He couldn’t help himself when she finally squeezed him between her legs, immediately running greedy fingers over her thighs, her hips, anywhere he could without touching where she might not want him to. No amount of hard swallowing had helped ease his thirst as he brought her down from her high and attempted to get his heartbeat under control. 

 _She’s not ready. I’m not ready_. _She’s not ready_.

Every word, every reassurance he’d told himself then sounds like absolute nonsense to him now. Ready for _what_? She’d be leaving so very soon, but damn it all if the smell of her hadn’t been driving him insane. Hearing her pant and moan and whine, the smell of her arousal lifting in the shared, trapped heat of too heavy blankets on too warm bodies driving him wild. The sheer feeling of her body writhing above him both sending him into a panic and warping his thoughts until he could see and smell and hear nothing but her.

_She’s not ready. I’m not ready. She’s not ready._

It may have been nonsense, but it’s the only thing that kept him from doing something he might regret. It gave him enough time to get to the bathroom and put little Kylo to sleep, though he would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined her grinding on _other_ parts of him the same way. Keeping quiet had required a miracle.

Now that he’s finally returned to his senses and his hormones are no longer driving the clown car it’s easier to think, and he’s thankful to the horny version of himself for having enough restraint to _not_ give in, no matter how much he wanted to. He closes his eyes and immediately recalls her face before he left for the bathroom.

_Pink cheeks, swollen lips, wild glassy eyes and a thoroughly-fucked-out expression on her face._

“ _Are you, ah—“_

What would have happened if he’s said yes, he’s just as needy? Would she have—

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. DO. NOT. THINK. ABOUT. IT._

He withdraws his hand from her hair. Enough touching for one night.

Trying to be _good_ and a gentleman had never been this hard in his life. Still, gentleman or not, Kylo does allow himself one last thing for the night. He very slowly leans in and presses his lips to hers ever so carefully so as not to wake her, finally giving into the realization that he’s a goner. He’s at least ready to admit that much to himself.

_Kissing her while asleep. Can you sink any lower?_

He probably could, but he refuses to entertain the idea before he willingly destroys his heart further. He never did quite learn how to stop doing that.

He falls asleep soon after, a sense of dread blooming inside of him. He may have just muddled things for both himself and her more than he ever intended to.

______________________

 

In the morning he wakes up to find her gone. Kylo rubs at his eyes then flops back in bed, staring at the ceiling, one arm resting where Rey usually would. Her side’s cold already. How long has she been gone? He sighs.

Yeah, it had been too good to last.

He runs his fingers through his hair to get it out of his eyes then rubs his face, feeling the beginning of stubble there. He should get rid of that soon. The thought of shaving veers sharply left when he wonders what Rey would think if he just let it be, or if she would complain that it would be prickly— he shakes his head harder this time to clear the fog settling over him when images of the previous night try to braid themselves into his thoughts.

 _You’re an idiot, Kylo Ren_.

He grunts his way out of bed and turns in a small circle in place, looking for his jeans. They’re nowhere to be found, so instead he goes through his clothes and pulls out a pair of sweatpants, throwing them on and grabbing his phone from the nightstand before padding downstairs. He opens the fridge, grabs a water bottle then looks at the time.

10:10Am. He’d slept in. Funny. He’d never been such a heavy sleeper, nor was he accustomed to sleeping so well. He waits for any indication that Rey may be wandering about the place but hears nothing, so instead he does the one thing he told himself he’d _never_ do. He opens up her contact information and sends her a text message like the whiny, needy person he is.

He debates on what he should type in. If he asks where she went, would he sound desperate? Yes, he decides. He completely would. So instead he asks the same thing but… in different words.

 **10:12AM** _Kylo Ren says: Where are you?_

The minutes pass uncomfortably slow. By the time his phone pings with a notification Kylo’s knee has been bouncing anxiously for a while, empty water bottle in a tight grip.

 **10:20AM** _Duckling says: At Maz’s. Did you need something?_

Kylo finally breathes, setting the half-crushed bottle on the counter and wandering back upstairs to throw on some proper clothes. Him showing up at Maz’s shirtless would probably not go over very well. Or… _should_ he even go to Maz’s? If he does, would it make it awkward? Kylo groans, yanking at his hair as he flops back into bed. Indecision had never suited him well. He could just… sleep. Maybe. She’s gone for a while. It’s fairly quiet. Work could wait.

Except his phone feels like a hot brick in his hand. He stares at her message.

 _‘Did you need something_?’

Oh, the many things he needs right now. But he _technically_ doesn’t really _need_ anything.

_Get it together, man!_

**10:25AM** _Kylo Ren says: No._

Well, at least it’s safe. His phone pings immediately. Had she been waiting this time?

 **10:25AM** _Duckling says: Okay. I should be back in a few hours with the laundry._

Oh. Well, he can breathe a little easier now. She hadn’t just run because she’d basically gotten off on his thigh and gave him a hard on to last all of eternity and shit would be awkward in the morning. No, she’d left because she had taken the laundry to Maz’s. He looks at the closet where he’d finally hung his clothes, then a sudden rush of awkward embarrassment washes over him. She’s washing his clothes. It feels a little too domestic even for his tastes. He could wash his own clothes.

 **10:26AM** _Kylo Ren says: You didn’t have to do that, you know? I could have just taken it all to town._

 **10:27AM** _Duckling says: It’s not a big deal._

She inserts a little smile emoji in there, pixel cheeks flushed, and he can almost imagine the same cheeky grin on her face.

Wait.

She’s washing his clothes.

Kylo bolts right back out of bed, this time with a renewed sense of panic as he looks around for his jeans. They’re not hanging anywhere, nor are they under the bed. He yanks his jacket out of the peg on the wall and shoves his hands into the pockets, looking for a small silver ring, feeling for the edges of a metal heart. Nothing.

He throws the jacket on the bed, opens his bag and starts searching around with frantic fingers. Perhaps he’d left it there? Did he leave it inside his jeans? Kylo tries to remember the last twenty-four hours; the last forty-eight. Nothing. They’d been so busy lately he’d managed to put it out of his mind just long enough to lose track.

His jeans. His jeans.

It was probably in the pocket of his jeans.

 _Of course it'd be in the pocket of your jeans, you moron. That’s where you’ve kept it all this time_.

He’d kept swiping the ring into every pair of jeans he’d worn, keeping it there _just in case_ the moment arose. Why would this be any different? His panic is building. What if she lost it? Worse, what if she _found_ it?

The ring, the ring.

He throws his jacket on over a t-shirt and nearly trips over himself and breaks his neck on his way down the stairs, his heartbeat trying to outpace him by a million miles an hour, but the race to see which one can get to Rey first is completely overshadowed by the panic running rampant in his head. Up until this moment he’d been able to keep himself in check, to keep his emotions from parading on his face, all trumpets blaring, but there’s a certain level of manic alarm only a wedding ring can produce. And it’s not even like he’s been thinking of _truly_ proposing to the girl, but now it feels just as if he had, his stomach jammed in his throat at the idea that she might have found what he’d been hiding.

For once he’s _very_ glad no one really knows him here but Maz. He’d become a complete trainwreck ever since running into Rey Jakken  — or, rather, ever since she’d barged in — and now it’s starting to catch up to him.

By the time he bursts into Maz’s living room he’s breathing hard. Maz and Rey both look up from where they’re sitting, picture albums spread around them like fallen autumn leaves, both wearing identical startled looks on their faces. Maz is the first to snap out of it though when she gives him a smile as Chewie lifts himself up and waddles over at a snail’s speed at the sudden intrusion into his household, sniffing his leg with interest. Rey doesn’t blink, mouth slightly agape. Then she shakes herself out of it and tilts her head sideways.

“Did… you need something after all?” she asks, trying and failing to keep the confusion out of her tone of voice.

Kylo swallows, trying to get a hold on some semblance of composure while berating himself. He hadn’t expected them to just be _sitting_ there. Maz eyes him dubiously, long fingers tapping an amused rhythm on the photo album on her lap. He opens his mouth to say the first thing that comes into his head then quickly closes it, thinking better of it.

He should think this one through.

“I—“ he starts, “I came to check if you were done with laundry.”

Rey tilts her head, her confusion heightening.

“O-kay?” Rey says.

_Smooth, Kylo._

It is Maz who finally saves his hide by waving him towards the back of the house as if she knows exactly why he’s here. She _probably_ does.

“Oh yes! Go on,” she urges. “It’s all neatly folded in the laundry room. Would you mind grabbing that for her? I have a few more things I want to show her.”

Kylo eyes Maz, sending a silent thanks up to the sky as he dips his head through the door frame and passes them by slowly. He feels Rey’s eyes follow him, feels them on him even as he takes a sharp right around the corner. The second he’s out of sight he picks up his pace, bolting into the laundry room. His eyes land on the counter. As promised, he finds his newly laundered clothes neatly folded right next to Rey’s, shirts then pants, a neat little pile of boxers over the t-shirts. He dives in for the jeans immediately, making a mess of Rey’s handiwork — he assumes it was Rey who folded them, after all.

The ring is exactly where he’d left it.

Had it gotten washed? His alarm this time has nothing to do with Rey and everything to do with what Maz would do to him if she learned he’d allowed her precious heirloom to get put through a washing machine, yet that panic is easier to deal with. He pockets it quickly, collecting the laundry in the laundry basket, trying his hardest to fold everything back the way he’d found it, and when he steps out into the living room he’s both looking _and_ feeling a hundred times more self-composed and put together, thank you very much. Maz turns to look at him while Rey continues looking at Maz’s pictures, fingers caressing the images with the same reverence with which Kylo himself had always looked at the photo frames on the mantel. Perhaps he’s not the only bleeding heart romantic here.

He clears his throat to get her attention. Rey blinks up at him, apparently having forgotten that he was even around. That stings a little more than it should. “Ready to go?”

“Ah,” she says, setting aside the photo album and dusting invisible dirt off her thighs. “Yeah.”

He nods to Maz, who ignores him in favor of bidding Rey goodbye with a hug and a kiss to the cheek — another irritant, that; now he’s basically being all but ignored by everyone — then he exits the house as soon as possible, fingers wrapped around the ring in his pocket. Back where it should be. Safe and sound.

Rey joins him a moment later.

In hindsight, the fact that she hadn’t looked at him or smiled like she’d done so many times in the past should have been his first red flag.

For the next two days Rey and Kylo seem to devolve into this state of uneasiness he hadn’t felt since their first few days in the hotel room. Outwardly Rey seems to go about life as she’d always done, with purpose and an unwavering determination to get things done. She gets up early every day and works herself to the bone, the pub slowly morphing from a run-down, neglected shack into… well… a proper pub. She works without breaks, and though sometimes he even catches her dancing to his playlist, every time he tries to get closer Rey just shuts down.

Oh, she’s still as friendly as ever. Or at least she tries to be, yet he likes to believe he’s been around her long enough now to notice the slight shifts in mood— the way she averts her gaze whenever he tries to meet it, the way her smile struggles to reach her eyes, the fidgety nature their interactions have taken on, as though she regrets the situation but doesn’t know how to back out gracefully. It both sets him on edge and sends his senses into overdrive, finding himself torn between wanting to give her her space and just pull her in and shake her.

Two days of this and by the morning of the third day Kylo has barely slept a wink, especially the previous night. He’d come to bed fully expecting Rey to climb in as she always did, choosing to ignore the way she’d kept herself pressed to the wall so as to not share more mattress with him than she had to, except she hadn’t come to bed. He’d thought maybe she was busy, maybe she was waiting for him to fall asleep? Perhaps try to avoid the awkward tension that had settled itself over them, sexual frustration and awkward self-restraint trying to strangle them both in equal measures.

Yet Rey hadn’t come to bed _at all_. He’d woken up at three in the morning, turning over to try and tuck her in as he’d become accustomed to doing, feeling her absence more sharply than ever when his body had met the cold sheets. Kylo’s eyes had snapped open and he’d quietly snuck out of bed only to find her asleep in the next room over, curled up into a fetal position to guard herself against the chill and her fears. The shock to his system had been more of a painful stab than a shock. And so he’d returned to bed and slept not a wink, and now it’s midway through Rey’s third week and the third day of Kylo being avoided and he would be lying if he said his brain hasn't turned into a snared-up ball of thread, red and dripping with both the sting of rejection and his own personal flavor of aggressive confusion.

This is not how he expected this to go.

That morning he finally breaks. He finds her already at work, obnoxiously yellow rubber gloves pulled up all  the way to her elbows as she bends over a particularly tough patch of grime in one of the bathrooms. She’s back in her shorts and light t-shirt ensemble, hair in a messy topknot and brow furrowed in concentration as she scrubs the tile floor within an inch of its life. Kylo leans against the door, choosing to put his theory to the test.

“Hey.”

That’s all it takes.

Rey jumps, a strangled squeak catching in her throat at being caught unaware, and then—

Her expression closes as though she has to physically work at it, eyes twinging with something like pain and regret on the miraculous off chance that she _does_ look him in the eye. She mumbles a good morning and bends back over her work, the scritch-scratch of her agitated scrubbing forming a barrier between him and anything he could ever say that she would be willing to hear; so instead he crosses the floor and grabs her by the elbow, ignoring her yelped complaint as he pulls her up off her sudsy knees and out the room.

“We have to talk.”

Rey says nothing so he instead grabs her hand, feeling the soapy, slippery latex, hearing it squeak against his own fingers. If she wanted to pull away she certainly could. It’s not like he could hold onto her gloves. But she doesn’t, so he grabs his keys from the hook by the door and pulls her along until they’re standing in front of the Camaro. He finally turns to her and looks her in the eye.

“We have to talk,” he repeats, an anxious bubbling in his stomach attempting to reach boiling point the longer Rey stands in front of him looking both nervous and _sad_. What on earth had he done now to make her _sad?_ That’s not what he wanted. Was it because he offered her his body that night? Was she regretting it now? He takes in a deep breath.

“Will you get in the car, please?” he asks, because despite the incessant itch in his head telling him he fucked up _thoroughly_ this time, nevermind the fact that he doesn’t know _how yet_ , he still remembers his basic manners. She surprisingly complies, as though she’d been expecting this.

She doesn’t even ask where they’re going. That somehow only bothers him more. By the time he faces her while standing at the castle, in the exact same spot where they’d danced, he’s already gone through ten different scenarios of how this would go and none of them were looking promising.

He breathes in deep, preparing himself for battle.

“Rey—“

“I know what you’re going to say,” she responds immediately.

_What?_

“What?” he asks dumbly.

It’s as though all it had taken was for him to take her out here for her to open up, away from their perpetually shared space and all the things they had started associating with each other. Rey fists her hands at her side, still in her ridiculous rubber gloves, erecting her posture and forcing herself to look him in the eye even with the minute tremor to her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry,” she says, cheeks coloring pink, and he’s unsure whether she’s trying not to cry or flushing over something else but he could almost imagine that it’s because of the former, and his brain screams at him on cue.

“You’re sorr— what? Rey, what are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats, emphasizing that last word as she looks at her rubber gloves. “It’s just,” she gasps in some air, trying to draw in her courage. “Look, Kylo, you don’t owe me anything, okay? I know things have been confusing ever since Finn and I—“

There’s a strangled little choking sound. Kylo stares at her dumbly, and he’s pretty sure it’s showing on his face because Rey tries to smile. “I know things have been confusing ever since Finn and I broke up. I know I took a lot of what you did for granted—“

 _What is she even_ talking _about?!_

“But I just wanted you to know that what happened the other night was,” she breathes in again, having run out of air as she tries to get her explanation out before he can say anything, the thin wavering breath suspended in the air before she starts again, “it was amazing, okay? It _felt_ amazing, and I’m thankful to you for, you know… for helping me… but then I just… if I used you in any way or—“

“What are you even _talking_ about?” he finally bursts, unable to keep the question inside himself as it loops over and over in his brain. “Since when have you used me? _I_ suggested it—“

Rey puts a hand up to stall him, having decided she’s not quite done nor is she going to let him talk over her.

“But I guess I never considered that you— I let myself get wrapped up in this,” she says, swallowing rapidly and taking a step back to put some safe distance between them. Kylo immediately takes a step forward, righting the balance of the universe by keeping her exactly as close to him as she needs to be. She reads him as if he were transparent, giving him an exasperated look before continuing. “And I just— you helped me through my pain but I never considered that maybe you’re not quite over your own.”

_What?_

That one word is all he can think of right now, unable to form any other coherent thought as he tries to take on the onslaught of Rey’s explanation. Everything else has become a low hum, an annoying buzz just above the sound of his pulse, and if he thought he was losing his mind before — however many times he’d thought it, which he assumes is many — nothing compares to this one. The words carry such a level of surrealism he’s having a hard time grasping them. He thought she was struggling with their shared intimacy but she’s struggling with the thought of having _used_ him? What nonsense—

“I don’t understand. Did I do something? I know what we did was—“ he doesn’t dare continue that, so instead he puts his palms out, ready to plead at her feet. “Will you please explain to me what you’re talking about?”

Rey looks at him with both pity in her eyes and understanding, as if suddenly sad that he’s such a thick-skulled moron, before looking at her feet. Her voice is no longer high pitched with that rushed trepidation it carried when she’d tried to tell him why she’d been avoiding him for two days. Why she hadn’t slept in the same bed as him for the first time in well over three weeks, which hurt him more than it should.

“The ring, Kylo.”

His ears strain to pick up on the words until they eventually float to him.

_The ring, Kylo._

...

_Of course she’d seen the stupid ring!_

His hand immediately goes to pat over his pocket, Rey’s eyes following the motion with a pained half-smile on her face. Why had he dared to hope that she’d just put it through the wash unseen?

“You said it was betrayal,” she begins, as if explaining the situation to a five-year-old from a certain point of view, “you were ready to propose, weren’t you?”

When she finally looks at him her pained smile has turned wistful, fragile. “We really are alike.”

Oh no.

 _No, no, no_.

His heart’s doing somersaults and somehow Kylo Ren could pass the bar and practice law, but Rey’s simple words aren’t registering properly.

She’s completely misunderstanding all this.

“Rey—“ he tries again, forgetting how language is supposed to be used except for the sound of her name because _damn it_ but she’s misunderstanding everything, and Kylo realizes with sudden clarity that it’s now or never.

He’s not even proposing to the girl. He needs to calm down. He needs to breathe. He needs to clear this confusion. He needs to tell her Maz gave him this ring to ensure the town didn’t explode in gossip, though by now it probably has begun anyway and he’d been a failure at stopping it because of his own misgivings, but a proposal by any other name is still a proposal and he just…

_Breathe, Kylo._

He swallows the lump in his throat and makes a split decision. His fingers slowly dip into his pocket and he takes out the ring, and the look on Rey’s face is heartbreaking. Kylo thumbs the silver band, looking down at it.

He’s not proposing. He’s _not_ proposing. Except he’s about to give her a ring only days after he’d asked her to stay longer, if only in so many words.

It’s not a proposal.

_It’s not a proposal._

_It’s. Not. A. Proposal._

For once, Kylo Ren chooses to go with unabashed honesty.

“It’s not for Katherine,” he says, taking a step forward. Rey doesn’t move back, her sadness replaced by puzzlement. “It’s for you.”

He watches it happen in slow motion, the way her brows stitch together, bright hazel eyes nearly disappearing behind the rapid fluttering of her lashes as she tries to blink through his sudden declaration. The pink in her cheeks deepens and she stops breathing for a millisecond, then, after the ticking of the seconds gets too unbearable, she finally opens her mouth to talk. Then snaps it shut.

She looks around the castle ruins, around the room high above the horizon from where they can see the lake and the clearing, and all that’s missing is for Kylo to drop on a knee and ask her to stay forever—

“You’re joking,” she says, eyes focusing back on him.

He can’t help himself, he smiles. Leave it to Rey Jakken to assume he’s trying to prank her, to rationalize away the very thing right in front of her eyes.

“I wish I were,” he says, then sighs. Right. The unabashed truth. “It’s Maz’s ring. She gave it to me so I could… give it to you.”

“Why?”

Her tone’s hard.

His first instinct is to question her right back, to ask her if his being attracted to her is such an inconceivable notion, but that would only mire them further in this gigantic chaotic situation they have both concocted. So he tells her the truth instead, that he’d been given the ring to keep gossip from spreading.

Minutes later, Rey laughs. She sags against the crumbling walls and rubs her forearm over her forehead, trying to wipe away the awkward tension along with the stray tendrils of hair framing her face.

“You could have said that from the beginning!” she giggles, “You almost had me there.”

That stings.

In reality, her response _is_ the response he should be happy to be receiving, but somewhere in the recesses of his cobwebbed heart that response _stings_. Kylo swallows his pride and looks at the ring again.

“Will you accept it?” he asks, hunching in over himself instinctively to ward off the blow her answer may deliver. Rey giggles again, though. She’s already moved on past the awkwardness, something he’s not entirely sure she realizes she does. It’s like she’s got this built in defense mechanism, some sense of self-preservation in her hardwired to forget about unpleasant things to keep them from getting to her. Kylo wishes he had the same thing for himself.

“Yes,” she says in response to his proposal. She puts out a yellow-gloved hand as if expecting him to pick it up and kiss it, raising her brows at him with good-natured humor in her eyes. Kylo snorts, letting himself crawl back inside his skin as he takes a step forward. He slowly removes her glove, shoving it into his back pocket for safekeeping and grabbing onto her fingers. Rey’s borderline giddy now that she’s in on this newfound joke.

He caresses her knuckles with his thumb for a heartbeat before pasting on a smirk and lifting her fingers to his mouth, kissing them gently before deciding to just play along.

Funny that he’d find himself putting a ring on a girl he’d never marry, a girl he’d only just met not so long ago. Funnier still how glad he is that it’s her of all people.

He’s a goner, and there’s no stopping this, at least not until she goes.

“It’s only for a little while, but will you, Rey Jakken, please accept me as your fake-fiance for a little longer?”

Rey throws her head back and laughs. “Did you just demote yourself from husband to fiance?”

Oops. He shouldn’t have been thinking about proposals, after all. He snorts, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I guess I just did.”

Before he can say anything else to embarrass himself though Kylo slowly slips the ring on her finger, the heart’s point facing outward to signify she’s engaged. Well, fake engaged. It’s the only one he remembers out of the multiple ways of wearing a Claddagh ring. He’d have to ask Maz.

When he finally pulls away Rey beams at him, flashing the ring on her finger. “How’s it look?”

It fits on her ring finger. It fits a little too well.

It fits _her_ entirely too well. He chews on the inside of his cheek.

It looks like it belongs there.

“It looks like it belonged on Maz’s hand twenty years ago,” he says instead. Rey swats at him.

“Dick.”

Kylo grins a goofy smile. “Always.”

Then Rey tilts her head sideways, suddenly remembering something. “If we’re doing this to keep the town from talking then… how should I address you? Kylo or Ben?”

 


	31. Night out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey finally comes to terms with a few realizations.

Kylo or Ben?

Rey wonders if she’d made a mistake by bringing this up, but it had been the first thing to come to mind after the hilarious events of the last five minutes. Well, the second thing to come to mind.

The first had been how oddly happy she’d been, her brain zeroing in on the sudden waves of relief she hadn’t expect to feel when he’d told her the ring wasn’t for Katherine. The panic that had quickly followed had been all but forgotten the second he’d explained the reasons for why he was about to give her a diamond ring while standing in the ruins of a castle like a prince from a long forgotten fairy tale. But that’s beside the point.

Kylo — Ben? At least that’s what Maz insists on calling him — immediately tenses in front of her, all of his good-natured humor melting off his face.

“Where did you hear that name? Wait, don’t tell me,” he says, answering himself. “Maz.”

He says the name with such tired resignation Rey can’t help but smile. 

“Also I’ve heard people whispering during our walks,” she says, taking a step forward while simultaneously looking at the ring on her hand. It’s beautiful, and fits perfectly. Her heart aches but she refuses to think about it too hard right now. “I’m not deaf, you know? And your uncle’s note had been addressed to Ben. If you wanted to keep it a secret, you’ve done a shoddy job at it.”

Kylo lets out a low, long-suffering groan, fingers scratching at his scalp as he runs his fingers through his hair.

“So, what should I call you?” Rey presses.

“Kylo,” he says, lips pursing as if he’d rather be talking about anything else— the ring, their renewed fake relationship, the weather. _Anything_. So long as it’s not this one thing. Rey presses on.

“But won’t they—“

“Kylo will do.”

Rey’s teeth click shut. At the look on her face, Kylo softens his tone, taking a step forward and gently placing a massive hand on her bare shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. His features relax, taking away the hard edges and transforming him back into a gentle giant.

“Let me deal with the questions,” he says, his hand slipping down the length of her arm to grab onto her newly ringed hand, unaware of the goosebumps he leaves behind, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Alright?”

Rey studies him for a little longer, searching those beautiful golden brown eyes that have started haunting her and trying to reconcile this man with the one she’d met at the airport in New York. She chews on her lower lip. His name is none of her business, really, and she has bigger things to worry about.

“Alright,” she says, giving his hand a soft squeeze in return before dropping it. He immediately looks about as relieved as she’d felt earlier.

But then an awkward silence descends on them now that the excitement is over. Rey clears her throat, realizing a moment too late that they both had moved in closer and there are only about six inches of open space between them, wondering if she should step back first. Or maybe he will.

But then nobody moves. She looks up at him only to find his lower lip trapped under his teeth and her stomach backflips.

“Rey,” he says, and she hates the way his lashes lower right along with his voice because just two nights ago she’d decided to not focus on those particular traits of his. She’d decided that she maybe she could stick it out a little bit longer. But then he looks at her that way and she wonders if she should just… go home.

She’d already been burnt once. Growing attached to another man, for _any_ reason, doesn’t sound like such a great idea right now.

_But then he says my name like that…_

Rey clears her throat again and steps back, inhaling sharply as she rights herself and slaps on a smile.

“So, _fake-_ fiance of mine, should we get going?” she asks, dispelling the tension in the air. “I have a bone to pick with that tiled bathroom floor yet.”

Kylo blinks, the spell lifting. His Adam's apple bobs up a few times and he shoves his hands into his jeans, nodding. She forces her smile to widen then turns around when his eyes narrow at the obviously fake grin. She silently exhales, resisting the urge to twitch her fingers at her side.

The ride back is quiet, or as quiet as it can be with the music blaring out the windows in an attempt to fill the silence they’ve left between them. She can hardly imagine what’s going through his head but as for her, Rey’s is busy itemizing all the things she needs to do when she gets back. It keeps her from thinking about Kylo Ren, about the hand resting on his thigh, the one she’d straddled a few nights ago. It keeps her from thinking about the ring on her finger, though that one’s harder to accomplish every time the diamond crown catches the light. She stares at it and chews on the inside of her cheek from time to time.

She came to Ireland and got what she wanted, just not exactly the way she thought she would. Yet there are worse things in life than playing fake-engaged to Kylo, she thinks, stealing a glance at his profile as he taps his fingers on the wheel and steers them into town. He’s not Finn— no, this man is an entirely different beast. But he’s not so bad, either. He’s… well… he’s great, in fact.

More than great. He’s not Finn, but he’s…

_Stop it!_

She shakes her head. She’d been burned once.

The thought of Finn stings, though surprisingly _less_ now _._ Rey digs into her pocket for her phone and looks at Finn’s last messages. She’d received it the night before, right after having decided that she would do better not to sleep in the same bed with Kylo.

**12:04 AM Finn says:**

_I know you said not to call you, so I’m texting. I just wanted to let you know that I am extending my stay in Portugal. I don’t know how long you want to stay in Ireland, or if you’ve chosen to go home, but know Bebe will be waiting for you if you do. Rent’s been paid._

And then, as if he’d painfully debated with himself before sending the next one—

**12:15 AM Finn says:**

_You probably don’t want to see my face or hear from me after what happened but… I just want to let you know I still worry about you. You’re still my best friend and I still care. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you, but I can’t sleep thinking that you hate me. I’m sorry. I just want what’s best for the two of us. I hope you’re doing okay, peanut._

It’s hard to hate the guy when he’s so inherently thoughtful. Rey sighs and stashes the phone away. She knows he’s seen the message by now. Rey had never bothered to turn off the _read_ notifications. How awful must he be feeling that she hasn’t bothered to answer? She pulls out the phone again, earning herself a curious look from Kylo at her sudden fidgeting, but she ignores him and quickly types up a response before she can lose her nerve.

_‘I don’t hate you.’_

She hits send and gnaws on the fleshy pad of her cheek, debating on what she should say next. Should she say something?

 _‘You hurt me, but I don’t hate you. You’re still my best friend._ ’

She looks at the words. It’s not like she’s lying. Before they were ever a _thing_ , Rey and Finn had been friends first and foremost; _above_ anything else, they would always be friends. Yeah, she’s still pissed but… she looks at Ren.

 _You might regret that tomorrow._ She remembers his words clearly.

Yeah, she regrets saying she hates Finn. Thinking of him still hurts, but she could never hate Finn. It had helped that she’d talked about it with Maz that day she’d taken the laundry over, her insight and wisdom a true eye opener for her. Rey looks out the window, resting her phone on her lap, the little typing bubble probably flickering on Finn’s end. She should respond soon.

_“So you came here because you wanted to be married or because you love him? Or something else?” Maz asks, handing Rey a glass of cold tea, the question startling her._

_“What do you mean?” she asks, confused. Of course she loves Finn. Of course she wants to be married._

_Well… no, she thinks, amending her first thought. She wants a family. Marriage just seems like the fastest route there. Maz looks at her as though she’d seen this a billion times, through the ages, and gives her a kind smile._

_“Your Finn sounds like a wonderful boy, Rey,” Maz says, taking a seat next to her and reaching over on the low shelf to pull out a picture book. “I want to show you something.” She hands Rey the book and opens it up to a random page. “This is what my marriage looked like. It was beautiful. Hard, at times, but beautiful nonetheless. We didn’t have children, my family ended up being that silly Ben’s uncle, Luke Skywalker, and a few close others. Ben himself, even, though he was here for too short a time.”_

_Rey scans the pictures, running her fingers over the faded yellow images, staring intently at the memories trapped within. Somehow it feels like she’s being told something important, feels as though she should listen closely._

_Maz taps a picture, pointing it out to Rey. In it stands a young Maz, arms around her husband’s neck, placing a giant smooch on his cake-covered face. A birthday, then._

_“We were best of friends,” she says wistfully. “The best there could be. And it helped us, but there’s more to a marriage than friendship, child.”_

_Maz looks at the pictures again, Rey’s eyes following suit as the elder woman imparts all of the wisdom she can from decades of marriage._

_“Friendship is a form of love. Love can carry you through a lot, Rey, but not without a stronger foundation. When life gets rough, when you start getting weighed down by the world and it starts following you home, when the fights start, when you realize you can’t have children… it’s not just love that carries you through, but compromise. Understanding. Empathy.” Maz pats Rey’s hand. “Above all, what carries you through it all is a vision. A shared vision of a world where you both want the same thing. Then, and only then, can love strengthen that foundation. Love is the blood of a marriage, but it’s not the backbone.”_

_Maz sighs, leaning down and petting Chewie's ears as she lets the words sink in. “Do you and this Finn fellow share that vision? Or did you follow after him because he’s always been there, with friendship and love, to save you from yourself?”_

_Before she can say anything, Kylo bursts in._

“Are you okay?” he says. Rey startles, sitting up straighter.

“Uhm?”

“You’ve been staring at nothing for a while,” he says, turning to look at her. He’s no longer driving, the Camaro parked in front of the pub. “Are you okay?”

“Oh!” when had they arrived at the pub? The glint of the light on Maz’s ring catches her attention again. She turns it slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Kylo looks unconvinced, but he drops it. “Alright then. Should we go in?”

The phone is still on her lap, blinking while waiting for her to keep typing. Rey chews on her lower lip and turns to Kylo.

“Give me a second, okay?”

When she’s alone she picks up the phone and edits her message.

_‘I don’t hate you. You’re still my best friend. And you were right.’_

A second later Finn replies. The poor man must have been waiting, staring at the typing bubble.

**11:23 AM Finn says:**

_About what?_

Rey smiles.

_‘About needing to find out what I want. I hope you find what it is you want too, Finn. Good luck with Portugal.’_

She hits send and waits a few seconds, but Finn doesn’t respond, so instead she hits the home button and gets out of the car, stashing the phone in her back pocket. Then she stops and takes a deep breath of clear, sweet air, her eyes surveying the entrance of Kylo Ren’s pub, painted bright blue with the color she’d chosen, feeling a weight lifting from her shoulders. A weight she hadn’t realized existed until it finally dissipated with her message to Finn. The feeling of letting go is as light as air.

She finds Kylo in the kitchen, stirring a spoon into a mug. There’s a second one full of steaming liquid next to it. Rey’s brows rise as he quietly offers it to her while still stirring his own. She takes it with a small thank you before leaning against the counter.

She’s not sure what she wants, but she’s sure it’s not waiting for her at baggage claim in New York, or inside her lonely apartment.

Maybe she could take the time to figure it out here while enjoying the scenery instead.

“Kylo?”

“Hmm?” he asks over the rim of his mug, turning around to look at her with raised brows.

“Is that offer for me to stay still open?”

His brows lower but he nods silently anyway, lowering his mug to take a good look at her.

“Mind if I take it?” she asks and his lips tug upward just a bit, though he’s quick to smother it with a serious expression.

“You’ll end up having to be fake engaged to me the whole time,” he says, a warning ahead of time of what she’d be signing up for by doing so. 

“My fake fiance happens to be a gentleman,” she says, pinching her nose at him. “Even if he can be a bit mouthy sometimes.”

Kylo scoffs.

“Plus work is work, and… I’m starting to grow fond of the Irish countryside.” She says, “I could use that right about now.”

Kylo nods. “You can stay as long as you want.”

Rey laughs. “Don’t say that, I might end up taking it literally and stay forever.”

She turns around, gulping down some coffee and very nearly burning her tongue in the process before putting the mug in the sink. Then she hurriedly slips on the one rubber glove and steals the other from Kylo’s back pocket as she passes him, deciding it’s time to put her money where her mouth is and get to work.

But not before she’s called back.

“Rey?” Kylo says behind her. She turns, yellow rubber glove halfway up her arm, surprised to find that Kylo looks _relieved_. “I’m glad you’re staying.”

 

______________________

 

By the end of the evening the war has been fought and Rey stands crowned the supreme winner, the bathroom tile gleaming bright white. She surveys her work with pleasure, finally taking off those blasted gloves and throwing them into the now empty bucket. A glint of something catches her eye and she immediately inspects her left hand.

Would it always be that way? Every time a diamond shines she loses concentration. Rey wonders if this happens to every woman who wears a shiny ring, and decides this might be why they say diamonds are a woman’s best friend— they’re just so pleasing to look at. She turns her hand in front of her as if this ring truly belonged to her, delightedly twisting her fingers to watch it sparkle and the light dance. Then a knock on the open door makes her jump six feet in the air with a squeak.

Kylo’s leaning against the door frame, looking entirely amused and far more put together than she is. He, in fact, looks pretty dashing.

His hair’s been freshly washed, shining almost as much as Maz’s ring, and he’s wearing a tailored jacket that does strange things to her eyes every time she tries to focus on the sheer size of his arms and shoulders. The rest of the outfit is simple, black t-shirt and jeans, a very expensive looking watch around his wrist, and dress boots. He kind of reminds her of those bad boys in old movies that made panties drop left and right.

“Done gawking?” he asks, tilting his head sideways, his amusement skyrocketing.

She covers her embarrassment with a snort. “As if. And where are you going all dressed up?”

“We,” he corrects her. “Go get changed.”

_Huh?_

“Why?”

_Wow, but if that’s not an exaggerated eyeroll—_

“We’re going out,” he says once his eyes have returned back to their original position looking at her, “I think it’s time we took a break.”

Her back aches from crouching on the floor, her hair’s a mess, her nails have been ground to nothing, and she probably looks like a fright but by God if a break doesn’t sound wonderful by now.

She wanders off to collect her clothes, trying her hardest to ignore the mischievous glint in Kylo’s eyes trailing her. And then she feels stupid when she can’t pick out what to wear because now she’s got more clothes than she thought she would after Kylo had practically purchased half the small boutique district at the harbor. But Kylo had dressed up, or at least as dressed up as she can remember him being, and even though he’ll probably outshine her no matter what she does, she’s determined to try.

In the end she settles for a simple but comfortable summer dress, choosing to not think about the fact that it had been Kylo’s pick — reminding herself _she_ had also asked for his input. Sixty percent of her new clothes had also been approved by him. He has more sense of fashion than she does, which is _obvious_ by how startlingly good he looks at the moment. She grunts then goes into the bathroom, showering quickly and refusing to fuss too much with her hair, letting it dry in its natural waves as she gets ready. Then she digs into her bag, hesitating for a moment before pulling out the tube of red lipstick she’d purchased on a whim at JFK before boarding the plane for Dublin.

_Would it be too much?_

He’s dressed up. She should at least _try_. Rey wanders back into the bathroom and carefully applies it, blotting and making sure it’s perfect and cherry red. She stares at it for a moment, feeling a little self-conscious for a heartbeat.

 _Oh, whatever._ Why not.

She slips into some strappy shoes, tying the thin buckles at her ankles, and heads downstairs. When she gets there Kylo immediately looks her up and down, his eyes zeroing in on her mouth, making her forget her rather blase attitude and spinning it on its head then and there.

She shouldn’t have worn it. She’s not a red lipstick kind of girl—

“You look lovely,” he says, and _did his pupils just dilate_? Or was that a hint of the light? He clears his throat lightly before extending his hand towards the door, urging her to go first. She spends the whole car ride to town turning both the ring on her finger and the compliment in her mind. When they finally pull up to their destination she’s severely glad she bothered to try and clean up, though. It’s not a pub, but an actual restaurant. Nothing too fancy or too overdone, but there would be no knocking back beers here.

“Food first, fun later,” he says, guiding her with a hand to her back as is his usual, and she feels stupid because this is most _definitely_ a date, whether he had consciously thought of it as one or not.

But it’s pleasant, their dinner spent joking as they often do while seated at their table for two, Kylo sipping on scotch and Rey being very careful to nurse her glass of wine, lest it gets to her too fast. And it’s… nice. It’s nice to have a break. It’s nice to not spend the night looking at her phone, feeling guilty about one thing or another. It’s nice to sit there and eat her delicious pasta and make fun of Kylo’s stories about some seriously cringeworthy law school shenanigans involving a club and too many drinks.

“How did you even get through law school like that?” she asks, pointing her glass at him. Kylo smirks, sitting back and arching an eyebrow at her.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually not as dumb as some may have you believe I am.”

Rey chuckles. “You have a big head on your shoulders, Ren. I’m starting to think that story is fake and you just spent every day in your room reciting law like a never ending soliloquy into the mirror.”

Kylo somehow manages to both snort and laugh — which is entirely too endearing, if she’s to be honest — before he shakes his head.

“Okay, there may have been some of that, too, I’ll give you that much,” he says. “But I _can_ be fun.”

Which he decides to prove to her when twenty minutes later they’re standing inside a very crowded, very loud club, the neon lights flashing everywhere as Kylo takes her to the bar and orders a couple of beers, telling her for once they’ll dance at a place made for dancing. And Rey gives into it, forgetting her backache with a little help from her new friends: the three bottles of highly alcoholic brew she’d taken—though she remembers to drink plenty water this time. They divide their time spinning on the floor then sitting down for a bit and drinking, and two hours later Rey’s bladder’s about to burst.

“Kylo?!” she asks, having to shout even as she leans in close to his ear because he can’t hear her otherwise. He frowns at her, asking her silently what’s going on, so she points to the bathroom sign across the room then takes off to empty her bladder when he shouts that he’ll go get them something else to drink. She’s practically pinching her thighs together by the time she gets there, sighing with relief only a few minutes later.

Rey looks at herself in the mirror as she washes her hands. She’s looking messy already— waves wild with frizz from the heat of too many bodies in one place, eyeliner smudged from having wiped at the corners of her eyes too many times while giggling, and cheeks highly pink from far too much dancing and alcohol. She tries to right herself then gives up exactly thirty seconds later when she realizes she can hardly care, and Kylo probably doesn’t either, though the bastard still looks as pristine as when they’d left the pub.

Rey leaves the bathroom and weaves her way back, shouldering people in order to get through until she sees Kylo’s head towering over the masses at the bar. A sense of deja vu immediately washes through her.

There are girls surrounding him like bees to honey, all in varying degrees of undress as they flip their hair and smile coyly, and Rey is both amused and suddenly feeling overprotective, flashes of Kylo trying to avoid physical contact with other girls skittering past her vision in quick succession.

“Kylo!” she shouts his name over the music, waving a hand as he comes close. He doesn’t hear it, so she gets closer and does it again, and the second he turns and looks at her the look of uncomfortable distress on his face eases. Instead, he _smiles_.

That soft, understated smile.

That smile only seems to make the girls swoon more and try to move closer, which he inches away from as inconspicuously as he can, Rey immediately moving to his side.

“Hello,” she says to the other girls. “I’m Rey. Have we met?”

Two girls, a blonde with far too much decolletage showing and a tall brunette with legs that go on for miles tilt their heads at her, giving that fake-smile some girls often do.

“What?” the blond asks, and this whole conversation is happening like a shouting match but the music’s so loud Rey barely catches the words.

“I’m Rey!” Rey repeats, “Kylo’s fiance!”

The brunette leans forward, trying to catch the words when another song begins, this one more obnoxious than the last. Clubs are made for grinding asses to crotches and drinking alcohol, not for conversation, it seems.

“Hi! I’m Emma! I’m sorry, it’s so loud here. Who did you say you were?”

“Kylo’s Fiance!” she loops her arm through his, which does not seem to deter the other two.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—“

_Oh, for goodness’s sake._

Rey untangles her arms from Kylo’s and, seeing as his hands are busy with their drinks, she cradles his face in her hands and turns his head until he’s forced to stoop, promptly getting on tippy-toes and kissing him. He opens his mouth immediately, probably at having been caught by surprise — and he’s not the only one, the two flies gaping just as much — and Rey takes the opportunity to deepen it for a handful of seconds before she lets his face go, leaving him looking perfectly dumbfounded. Rey flashes Maz’s wedding ring.

She’s _not_ jealous. That kiss had nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with proving a point. Nevermind that the feeling in the pit of her stomach is a little too similar to the sinking feeling she’d felt when she’d spotted Maz’s ring in Kylo’s pocket while doing laundry.

She’s just making a damn _point_. A point the buzzing flies understand when they flush even in the darkness of the bar, against the neon lights, and trip over each other to excuse themselves. Rey gives a satisfied nod then turns to Kylo.

He’s staring at her.

“What?!” she shouts over the music. He smirks, more to himself than her this time, and shrugs, handing her a bottle of beer.

“Wanna dance?” he shouts back.

They head back to the dance floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A billion thanks to my wifey and beautiful beta EjBlaKit / [Darth-Ej](http://darth-ej.tumblr.com) as always because shes awesome. 
> 
> And a billion thanks to you guys for the 2500 comments and (preemptively) the 1800 kudos (so close to that giant 2k milestone!!). ;-; those are some ginormous numbers I never thought I'd see on this fic, so thank you. Also thank you for the ridiculous outpouring of feedback and support last chapter! Your comments make me feel more like I'm part of a community and less like I'm shouting into the void ;p
> 
> (If you find typos, please inform me. I am too tired to see them all by now lol)


	32. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo & Rey find themselves locked in a two-person war to see who can one-up the other with this fake-engaged nonsense, and ... well, the tensions start bleeding into their lives in private.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy aren't we glad that M rating is in place now. ;)

He’s floating on his own personal bit of cloud nine as he dances with Rey. Or, really, as he _grinds_ into her. There’s very little space to do much of anything else when the floor’s packed, and their twirling and hilarious attempt at dancing had soon turned into her body pressed up against his as people crowded them in from all sides. And he _likes_ it. But more than that, he likes the feisty little Rey who had only but ten minutes ago displayed a territorial side to her he hadn’t known she had. So he places his hands on her hips and guides her, closing his eyes and dipping his head into the crook of her neck. He hears her breath hitch, feels her trying to draw closer before attempting to move away, and Kylo grabs her arms and loops them back over his shoulder, holding her in place and nuzzling her hair.

“Sorry,” she stutters into his jaw.

“We’re fine,” he murmurs into her ear — practically kissing it so she can hear him over the music. “Just dance.”

She nods and he grips her closer, sending a particularly mean-spirited glare towards a random guy whose eyes had lingered a little too long on her ass, attempting to shimmy his way up to Rey from behind. The guy disappears quickly enough and Kylo once more devotes his undivided attention to the soft, small woman in his arms. 

The rest of the night is spent dancing, Rey and Kylo alternating between taking up a small square of space on the dance floor, drinking — though he’s long stopped taking in the alcohol, considering he’ll be driving them back — and stepping outside for cool air as the temperature inside the club continues to rise. By the third time they step outside again it’s nearing one in the morning and they’re both looking thoroughly partied out, Rey hanging onto a water bottle for dear life and Kylo playing with the car keys, trying to forget how Rey feels under his fingertips.

A glint of something shiny catches his eye and he turns to find Rey admiring the small little diamonds on Maz’s ring. She’s a hot mess, a beautiful hot mess, with her frizzy waves and her smudged eyeliner; with the high flush on her cheeks and glassy eyes from one too many fruity drinks as she twists the ring with her thumb to make it sparkle, hand held out in front of her like a newly engaged woman.

_Well, I suppose she is. Just not the sort she wishes she were._

He smiles, though, because he just can’t help himself. He’d caught her doing the same thing several times as if she’d found hidden treasure. He leans back, watching her closely. Rey seems to be unaware that he’s doing so, or doesn’t care. She just keeps twisting the thing and catching the streetlamp’s light.

“It’s pretty,” she says, looking at it. Kylo bites down on his cheek hard to stop the lopsided smirk threatening to take over.

“It is.”

“What’s the significance?” she asks, pointing to the little heart. “I mean, the heart. I’ve seen other people wearing it differently.”

“The heart’s point facing outward means engagement, inward means marriage. That’s as much as I remember.” He looks up at the sky. “Once upon a time people believed that there was a single vein running from the heart to the ring finger. Some say it’s the reason people chose to wear a wedding ring on that finger, giving it a sort of emotional significance. La Vena Amoris, they call it. A direct line to your heart.”

Rey twists the ring, studying it with renewed interest. “So is that why there are hands cradling a heart in the ring?”

He chuckles, leaning back on his elbows with a shrug. “Could be. La Vena Amoris is a myth, though. All of our fingers have similar veins and nerves.”

“It’s a sweet story, though,” Rey says. Kylo turns his head to look at her. She’s got a tiny smile on her face, and her eyes are still just this side of glassy.

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” he says. Rey finally looks up at him, raising her eyebrows at him.

“And you’re not?” she asks.

Well… she’s not wrong. He reaches over and grabs her fingers, staring at the ring. Rey studies him, the flush to her cheeks refusing to abate despite the chilly air as he gently thumbs the little heart and its precious crown of diamonds.

“Would it spook you if I said that I am?” he asks just above a murmur. Rey tilts her head, and part of him just wants to sigh at the fact that he only seems to be able to tell her how he feels when she’s half drunk, or when _he’s_ had more to drink than he should.

“No,” she replies after a moment’s deliberation.

Kylo smiles, gently moving her hand until her palm faces him, leaning in and kissing the soft pads of each of her fingertips and enjoying how she blushes furiously. He kisses the ring’s heart next. “Then yes, I am. Since I have nobody else to spoil with my affections, you’ll just have to bear with me as long as you wear that ring. In public, at least.”

There’s a reason they call it liquid courage after all.

Rey stares at him dumbly, her blush matching the leftover stain of her cherry lipstick. This whole crazy trip to a club had been worth it for that sight alone. She hadn’t been wrong in her assessment of him, and though he’d never been one to go to a club for fun he’d been in plenty of them thanks to Katherine and Hux, the two driving forces behind those horrible law school escapades. Well, mostly Katherine. Hux hates clubs just as much as Kylo does.

Suddenly it made sense why Hux kept going _anyway_ even though he was under no obligation to amuse his girlfriend, who was the perpetual life of the party. A bitter thought, that. The fact that he’s thinking of Katherine when he’s got a perfectly lovely, gorgeous woman sitting before him annoys him even further, so Kylo shuts down all thoughts on his past and gets up, extending a hand to Rey.

“Come on, duckling,” he says, heaving her up off the cement steps, “time to go home.”

“Why do you still call me that?” she asks, wobbling a little as she rights herself on her strappy shoes. Apparently, Rey Jakken doesn’t wear high heels very often. She looks at her feet in annoyance before demanding that he stand still and proceeding to use his shoulder as a living column on which she can lean, balancing herself with one hand against him and working off her shoes with the other.

“Call you what?”

“Duckling.”

Kylo tilts his head, thinking back to the first time he’d thought of her as one. She’d been dripping wet from the rain, trying to squeeze water out of the skirt of her dress and looking rather helpless and miserable. But he’s not about to tell her the endearment had been born of how pitiful she’d looked; he’d stopped calling her helpless a while ago.

“Would you rather I called you something else?”

Rey makes a face. “I didn’t say that,” she says, returning to her task and struggling with the buckle. Kylo rolls his eyes.

“Sit down already,” he orders. Rey does as ordered, glaring at him because just two minutes ago he’d made rise to begin with. He hands her the water bottle back and crouches in front of her, choosing to continue on his line of questioning as he gets to work on the buckles. They’re annoyingly tiny.

“Don’t you like duckling, Duckling?” he asks, hearing a huff above him and chuckling again. “How about princess?”

“Absolutely not.”

It’s really hard holding back a laugh right about now, but he manages as well as he can.

“Honey?”

“What, are you kidding me?”

“No?” he teases, “then how about darling?”

“You don’t seem like a ‘ _darling’_ kind of guy to me,” Rey says. He looks up to find her staring at him down her nose, held up in the air. “It’s a too white-collar snooty businessman kind of word for a guy like you.”

She says that as though that’s not exactly the background he comes from and he holds back a grin. Instead, Kylo immediately thinks of Hux, who _is_ the kind to use the world _darling_ like he’s referring to the cute little wife he’d gotten right out of the sixties, with his white picket fence and 2.5 children. This time Kylo _does_ smirk. It speaks of Rey’s exhaustion and faint traces of inebriation that she’s even humoring him now.

Kylo undoes one of her buckles, slipping off the shoe and moving onto the next one. The next nickname floats to his mind uninvited yet with painful familiarity.

“What about sweetheart?” he asks over her ankle resting on his knee, promising himself he’s only avoiding eye contact because he’s busy with her shoe buckle.

Rey’s silent for a second.

“You’ve called me that before,” she says, watching him take off her shoe. “It somehow suits you.”

Kylo snorts. “Alright then, _sweetheart_. I’ll call you it when we’re in public.”

Rey rolls her eyes and gets up, stretching her toes on the ground.

“Better?” he asks.

“Much,” Rey sighs.

“Then let’s go, duckling.”

Rey throws him a dirty look. He smiles to himself and starts walking.

“Do you give all of your friends pet names?” Rey asks, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as they make their way down the street, Kylo keeping a far closer eye out for sharp objects than Rey, who seems to care very little that she’s walking barefoot on a dirty sidewalk.

“Only the cute ones.”

She slaps him with a shoe to the arm and he hisses, trying not to make a big show of it.

“Don’t tease me.”

_But it’s so fun to tease you, duckling…_

He chooses to remain quiet, enjoying the cool night air and Rey’s company instead. He’s an idiot for being attracted to her, but he won’t lie to himself and say he’s not thrilled that she decided to stay longer, and it’s colored his night. He could use more nights like this one, walking down deserted streets at well past one in the morning, his jacket over a pretty girl’s shoulders and nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future.

By the time they get home and he’s turned off the ignition Rey’s already passed out cold. He collects her in his arms and brings her inside through the back door, up the stairs, and into bed, then walks into the bathroom and runs a hand towel under warm water. Silly woman. The last thing he expected to find himself doing would be wiping the bottom of her feet clean.

Rey stirs, sitting up to find her foot in his hand as he wipes at her toes, gifting him with a groggy, confused frown.

“What are you doing?” she asks, not that she bothers to try yanking her foot back. Kylo looks at her then holds up the dirty rag, to which she gives a sleepy ‘ _Oh,’_ then unceremoniously flops back asleep. He shakes his head. A month and some change ago she wouldn’t even let him near her _bag_.

Once he’s done he strips down and crawls into bed with her, saying to fuck with everything and wrapping himself around her, spooning her close. He’s a damned man after all, might as well go to hell in comfort.

“Stubborn duckling,” he mumbles into her hair, feeling his own exhaustion washing over him as his muscles relax. “Can’t you see what’s right in front of your nose?”

Rey lets out a softlittle sound, moving herself closer. His body makes a brave attempt at piquing with interest but he’s too tired.

“You can stay forever, you know?” he sighs. “I wasn’t joking. It’s not such a horrible idea.”

He’s mumbling half asleep and she’s out cold, and he’s not even sure why he’s doing it — there’s no point in doing so, after all — but he’s got to get it off his chest _somehow_ , because with the realization that he’s attracted to her had also come the realization that he doesn’t want to see her go. She’s been an inseparable part of his life for such a short time and yet it’s as though she’d always been there, is always _meant_ to be there. He traces his fingers on her abdomen, feeling it rise and fall as she breathes.

“I want you to stay,” he whispers with yet another sigh. When had he turned so… boyish? Sighing at every minute thing, pining for a girl out of his reach? He feels obsessive, and out of control, adrift when she’s not there. He hates himself for it.He’d tried so hard to not get attached— where did all that effort get him? So he says those five words. _I want you to stay._

_It’s easier than saying I want you._

If only she knew what she’s doing to him, pulling him apart at the seams without even knowing.

 _You could tell her_ , the voice inside his head says. And then another one joins the chorus, screaming at him that doing such a thing would immediately scare her off. He hugs her closer, protectively caging her in between his arms. Rey squirms, so he eases it up, just a little.

_I want you to stay._

_I want you._

_I want you to stay._

_I want you._

He repeats the words like counting petals off a flower, waiting for the moment when he’d have to pluck the final one, but when he falls asleep he can’t remember which one it is, the words jumbled together into a single note of longing.

That longing only gets worse as the next week goes by.

They spend their days working, the pub shaping up so quickly Rey suggests putting out flyers saying they’ll be opening up soon. He agrees, leaving her to her artistic endeavors as she works on Maz’s ancient computer while he takes over the leftover gruntwork. Yet it’s getting harder and harder to think clearly, his instincts now screaming at him to have her by his side at all times.

Their walks resume around town and, with Rey’s flyers being passed about people no longer feel the need to give them their space in the evenings. A few people pass them by, waving to Rey, but others feel the need to stop them and actually engage in conversation; most of them the elder, gossipy women who have been eyeing them with interest for weeks now. Which is fine, really, if bothersome. It’s just that it soon becomes a problem when he unconsciously starts pulling her closer the second any other man, young or otherwise, lands eyes on her. That less friendly part of him that bares his teeth and snarls starts wanting to make regular appearances when Rey offers to shake their hands and they instead make a move to kiss hers. He stiffens as they do so even while chanting to himself that he has no high ground on which to act jealous.

It becomes an even bigger problem when their acting starts bleeding into their alone time, when Kylo starts finding then _making_ excuses to touch her in private, or kiss her in public; the latest of which happens during a quiet afternoon when he spots Rey talking with a young, attractive guy, who couldn’t be any older than twenty but stares at Rey like he’d love to find out what makes her tick.

Kylo gets up from his crouching position in the front yard, removing his weeding gloves and placing them in his back pocket before instinctively wandering over.

“Sweetheart,” Kylo greets, coming up to Rey’s side and pulling her in by the waist gently. He tilts his head and quickly finds her lips, the supposedly chaste kiss he was going to give her lingering on for far more seconds than necessary. When he pulls back Rey’s eyes have glazed over a little. He smiles and points to the few flyers in her hands. “Done with those?”

He purposely ignores the kid, a little whelp who, despite his good looks, would be as easy to crush as a bug for somebody like Kylo. Rey clears her throat, remembering she’s supposed to be _faking_ , and smiles.

“Ah, yes! I was talking with uhm— I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

_That's right, little boy. Watch her forget your name._

The kid brushes his ash blonde hair out of his face and attempts a friendly smile.

“Jake,” he says.

Jake looks at Kylo nervously before purposely seeking out Rey’s hands now that they’re free, green eyes landing on the ring. He swallows hard and Kylo basks in his own satisfaction.

“Ah, yes, sorry!” Rey says, bless her kind heart for feeling embarrassed, “I was just talking to Jake. He told me his sister’s getting married and they’re looking for a place to host the party after. I was telling him about our pub.”

That sweet little _our_ in there makes up for any annoyance Kylo might have felt over this Jake character. He looks down at her with a smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!” she says, excited. He can see it all over her face, her happiness to be helping out. Kylo nods and turns to Jake, flipping on the professionalism switch.

“We’d love to have you,” he says. Jake fidgets. “When’s the wedding for the happy couple?”

“Two weeks? It’s a small thing,” Jake responds, shifting his weight, eyes on Rey because it’s apparently uncomfortable to look at Kylo himself. “They were just going to do it at our house but everyone’s been talking about how lovely Luke’s old pub is turning out to be with your work. Word spreads around quickly in this town. Should I give them your contact information?”

“Yes!” Rey pipes in, immediately handing out her phone number, something which grinds Kylo’s gears but he’s got no say in it. Jake smiles a relieved smile then excuses himself, telling them to expect a call from his sister soon. Kylo watches him go.

Then Rey turns to him with an amused look on her face.

“Are you really that territorial or did you take acting lessons on how to look intimidating?” she asks, eyes twinkling.

_If you only knew, duckling._

Rey rolls her eyes at his obvious desire not to say anything — which he decided would be the best course of action so he wouldn’t make a fool of himself — then tilts her nose up at him and turns. She places her hands on his shoulders to use as support, rising on her tippy toes and kissing him. Her kiss is the chaste kiss _his_ should have been, a soft, gentle press of lips to lips.

“You don’t have to worry, _darling_ ,” she teases, smiling when he scowls. “I’m all yours.”

Those words make his stomach flip upside down, sending a nervous jolt through his veins and sparking electricity. She shouldn’t say that. He doesn’t need more reasons to be overprotective by now, he’s got plenty of them. He growls in the back of his throat and Rey smirks, dropping back on her feet and walking around him. She might be acting, but there’s nobody around this time, Jake having long disappeared out of view.

 _Unless she’s not,_ whispers the little devil on his shoulder.

Nope. NOPE. 

He wouldn’t allow himself to even consider that possibility. His hopes would remain below sea level for as long as he could help it, thank you very much. So he resigns himself to following behind, to watching her through the day as she gets them their first client and starts making plans.

But then he thinks the same obnoxious sexual tension that’s been threatening to choke him must be getting to her, too, because he notices the same pattern he’s been battling for four weeks now _in her_. She starts moving closer when other women come around — the most endearing thing on the planet to him, if he’s honest — unconsciously seeking and touching any part of him that she can, whether it’s sitting shoulder to shoulder at night while eating dinner on Maz’s couch or in their own yard, or turning on the public displays of affection in public to eleven.

A few of these instances happen _right_ in front of Maz’s house, and the woman watches on with a highly amused expression on her face, which grinds Kylo’s gears to no end. But then he looks at Rey when she steps up to kiss his cheek and purposely steals the kiss, grinning at her like a kid who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and feels no remorse, and his annoyance at everything else dissipates.

Then it turns into a _competition_. The kid gloves come off. Rey hugs him by the waist one day and Kylo ups the ante, wrapping his arms around her from behind and nuzzling her jaw the next. Kylo calls her sweetheart and Rey comes up with an even more sugary sweet pet name. Rey washes the windows in her stupidly short shorts and so Kylo decides to finally wash the Camaro, purposely skipping a shirt, and watches her squirm. It gets worse in public when others approach.

They don’t even discuss it, it just becomes a silent war between them— a hilarious one for Maz and probably rather embarrassing for the rest of the town, but after that men stop trying to kiss Rey’s hands, Jake only dares waves a shaky greeting from all the way across the street, and Kylo’s entirely satisfied that he’s staked his claim on his fake fiance even if his competitiveness is about to give him a heart attack. But she started it, damn it.

It does have _one_ drawback, though. Two weeks of this and he’s found himself having to take care of business rather frequently, power-wanking in the shower and drowning in his own shame while Rey seems to retain the composure of a statue. He makes a promise to himself while washing himself clean one day. If Rey Jakken can keep her wits about her, so can he. He throws himself into helping with the party instead, the perfect distraction at the perfect moment.

Rey and Kylo transform the pub yard into a small fairytale bubble in practically days; they’d been informed decorations and catering would be taken care of, they just really wanted to rent the yard and tables, which is fine by him. There had been a few mishaps with Rey climbing the willow tree like a monkey to install strings of lights, but he’d caught her just in time and no bones were broken, and after a lot of long hours landscaping and planting flowering shrubs, all they’d have to do on that day would be to ensure nothing broke and nobody got hurt. It would be a fine soft opening for them both, Rey having suggested that they open up the pub a couple of weeks later.

So he allows himself to sleep in a little later than usual that morning, relaxing into the sheets after three long days of hauling dirt and mulch and plants and landscaping rock, figuring that he’d stay in bed with his eyes closed as long as Rey stays asleep.

But she isn’t. He frowns when he feels the bed shifting slightly, a soft motion, and Kylo tilts his head ever so slightly to the left, cracking an eye open. Rey’s facing away from him and the soft movement of the mattress doesn’t stop. Unless he moves, that is. He tests his theory a handful of times, staying deadly still for a handful of seconds before shifting an arm or a leg, and the movement comes to a full stop.

He once again stays stock still and waits for the movement to resume. When he hears the soft whimper and the wet sound of skin touching skin his suspicions are confirmed. Two weeks of dealing with himself in the shower thinking of her and suddenly she’s in his bed, under his sheets, touching herself and trying to be silent. He’s unsure whether to laugh or groan.

Then Rey whimpers again and he loses it. He shifts behind her and Rey stops, turning to stone as he rolls over and wraps his arm around her waist. She’s so tense he almost wants to smile. That’s what she gets for being caught in the act. Kylo lets out a soft puff of hot air against the back of her neck, waiting to see if she’ll do anything.

 _Ah, but she’s shy_.

He pulls her closer, Rey letting out an adorable squeak under her breath, shivering when his lips brush the soft baby hairs at the nape of her neck. He wonders how long she can wait it out until he feels her shifting again, but this time it’s to take her hand out.

“Don’t stop on my behalf,” he murmurs into her skin. Rey jolts, removing her hand immediately, so Kylo catches it in his. He can feel the dampness against his skin and breathes in deep, his eyes falling to half mast as he feels her heart pounding against his chest. He rubs a thumb over the knuckle of her middle finger, the one he imagines she’d buried two knuckles in.

“I—I—“ Rey stutters. He can feel her body temperature rising quickly, no doubt embarrassed at being caught. He licks his lips, wondering if he should—

Fuck it.

Kylo purposely bends his knees, meeting the back of hers as he spoons her up. Rey instinctively moves closer, burrowing her body into his with a sigh that makes him smile. She’s seeking friction without thinking about it, and his body’s not slow to react.

“Kylo?” she asks, trying to twist her head to look at him. Kylo leans his head up a little, looking down at her.

“Yes, duckling?” he says, watching her visibly swallow hard. Her cheeks are flushed and the pulse at her neck jumps at him with every one of her heartbeats, and when her lower lip catches under her teeth it takes all his self-control not to dip in and force her to stop by using his.

“How long have you been awake?” she breathes in soft gasps. Kylo gently strokes the hand still in his, trapped between his digits and her lower stomach. He smiles at her and lets his head flop back down on the pillow, choosing instead to nuzzle her behind the ear, chuckling.

“Would you like me to leave?” he asks. If she says yes he’ll get up and leave the room. He’ll let her finish in peace even if his own pent up frustration kills him. Rey doesn’t say a word, though. He nuzzles her again. “Rey?”

Rey gasps, a soft hiss leaving her at the feeling and he feels her lower stomach quiver. His tongue runs dry, but he remains where he is. When she finally speaks it’s with the breathiest of whispers.

“You don’t have to,” she says.

Is that an invitation? Kylo blinks owlishly, feeling her hair tickling his cheek.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs.

Rey once again hesitates, and once again he gets ready to leave. She opens her mouth to say something, clearly debating with herself, then she lets out a frustrated little whine, and boy can he empathize with that sentiment.

“No, I’ll leave,” she stays, making to move.

“Why?” he asks, tugging her closer, unwilling to let go of the little miracle he’d woken up to. He’d be lying if he said he doesn’t want to hear her climax, the memory of the last time she’d done so in his presence forever etched on the back of his mind. He tentatively laces his fingers into hers and guides them lower down, gently placing them against the band of her underwear. “When you can finish right here?”

There’s a hiccuped breath and a reflexive tensing of her fingers when he goes to remove his, tightening until they’re stuck with hers. Kylo blinks slowly again, breathing gently on her shoulder. “Would you like some help again?”

“I’ve never done this before,” Rey whispers. Kylo chuckles.

“What, masturbate? What were you doing five minutes ago, then?”

She grunts and rocks her hips back, presumably because she can’t just swat him off, but that only puts pressure on him and he hisses into her ear. The resulting shiver it sends down her spine is worth it.

“Not what I meant, Ren,” Rey balks, this time a little louder. Kylo finally moves, leaning up on an elbow and adjusting until her head rests on his forearm, looking down at her from under lowered lids with a small smile on his face. Rey frowns but the blush she’s been blessed with refuses to abate. “I mean this. Us. Whatever it is we’re doing.”

Ah.

He gets it now.

He’s offered to help her get off twice now, and she’d agreed once but— well, he can’t blame her. He’s not sure what they’re doing, either. He just knows he wants her, and in lieu of having her he’d be willing to just sit back and watch if she’d let him. He licks his lips, making what may just prove to be the most impulsive decision of his life.

Kylo leans down, gently nuzzling the hollow of her cheek, watching out for her response. Her eyes widen then her lids lower, her torso twisting with the indecision of shifting closer or moving further away, fingers twitching around his, tense yet unwilling to let go of his. He sighs, moving his head until his lips grace her ears.

“Would you stop overthinking it already?” he asks, and when she whimpers it drags from him a smile.

“I’m not overthinking anything,” Rey says, the last word sharp but weak. Kylo arches an eyebrow at her, forgetting for a moment the situation they’re in to wonder how she can be so argumentative about everything. Then he remembers something she’d once said and understanding dawns on him.

He understands two things. He understands that she’s seriously considering it, that she’s as sexually frustrated as he and willing to allow for quite a lot right now; he also understands that she’s still clinging onto a singular fear. He tests out his theory.

“You don’t need to be afraid of using me.”

Rey’s lips fall open, a soft sound tumbling out.

 _There it is_.

Kylo gently caresses her hand, nails grazing the elastic band of her underwear. Perhaps their habit of slipping into bed barely wearing anything had finally caught up to them both. He chews on the inside of his lower lip for a moment, breathing in deeply as he locks eyes with Rey, both of them at a standstill after weeks upon weeks of them riling each other up. No, he’s not sure what they’re doing, what they are, but—

Kylo leans in, their faces now inches apart. He whispers the words, scared that if he says them too loudly she might spook. “You can use me.”

Rey lets out a strangled sound, lashes fluttering as she tries to blink away her disbelief. When he leans down and brushes his lips against hers, the sound of his pleading leaks through his words. Coaxing. “Use me, Rey.”

Rey whimpers again in frustration, screwing her eyes shut, perhaps having lost her nerve—

Her craving for completion wins. She moves her hand, the one still laced with his, under the soft hem of her underwear. Kylo lets out a soft sound in the back of his throat, the growl threatening to escape lodged there at the consuming heat he feels, the softness. He wants to see her face, to see her as her lips fall open again with soundless euphoria should she choose to finish what she’d started.

Rey’s fingers hover, still unsure, so he places a soft kiss on her lips, then on the tip of her nose, his system operating on nothing but desire and need now. Whatever she does next defines what they’ll become after. His heart thrums with the possibility. Then Rey opens her eyes and looks at him.

God, but she’s beautiful. She’s _so close_.

“Go on, sweetheart,” he coaxes, feeling her tiny, panted breaths against his cheek.He waits for her to decide whether she can trust him.

Her fingers find her core, slick and wet and so very warm, and when he attempts to free his hand of hers so she can take over Rey clings on, making him want to swallow his tongue. His own body responds immediately, but he bites back that desire and watches her instead. Rey’s cheeks turn even redder, the high flush crawling down all the way to her collarbone, eyes a little wild as she regards him in fear that he might take back what he said.

As if.

He leans forward and finally kisses her, gently guiding her fingers until she starts moving them, a soft groan escaping him only for her to claim it. She’s so hot, and so wet, and so _open_ when she shyly spreads her knees to accommodate both her hand and his. “Good girl.”

The compliment makes her moan, which in turn drags a rumbled breath from him. Kylo finally lies back on the bed beside her, kissing her neck once more as he rests his hand on hers, letting her move, learning the way she enjoys being touched. Rey goes from soundless to vocal with every stroke, first letting out soft mewling sounds that start driving him insane, morphing into stuttered little _Oh_ s, every word breathed hard. Then she removes her hand, having taught him what she wants, and Kylo takes over. He hums into her skin as he takes up her pace, and when she twitches under him he once again praises her.

“Good,” he croons, slowly shifting his weight and hers until she’s on top of him, her head falling back on his shoulder. Kylo kisses her ear and Rey cranes her neck for him, her breathing wild, giving him a perfect view of quickly pebbling nipples hidden by a sad excuse for a tank top, the fabric thin and perfect. “Tell me what you want.”

Rey whines, then clamps her mouth shut in embarrassment, so he stops his fingers.

“Tell me what you want,” he repeats, firmly this time.

After a torturous handful of seconds of Kylo’s fingers pressing hard on her without truly moving, Rey finally breaks.

“Please,” she gasps, “please move them.”

He chuckles, both enjoying being bossed around and teasing her. He nips at her earlobe, making her gasp, before he starts rubbing lazy circles on her. “Like this?”

“Y—yes-s,” Rey groans, rocking her hips to produce friction. “M—more.”

Kylo presses down more firmly, increasing his pace, his other hand looping to rest on the soft skin of her exposed lower abdomen, gently caressing her. “And now?”

She inhales sharply, hands fisting around the sheets with frustration at being teased even as he does exactly what she’s asking of him. She opens her eyes and looks down at his hand, the one busy rubbing tight little circles on her clit, before tossing her head back and muttering to herself. “So good.”

“Hmmm,” Kylo hums against her neck, shifting his fingers until he’s applying pressure with the heel of his hand instead, leaving his fingers free to gently run along her folds. Rey gasps at the increased pressure, at the encompassing weight of his hand on her, then curses.

“Fuck,” she hisses out. Kylo smiles.

“If you’d like,” he says, landing yet another soft kiss on her shoulder. “One finger or two?”

 _That_ must have been quite the image for her, her torso threatening to rise off his entirely as she grabs onto the sheets and thumps them down angrily. Kylo could laugh. He’s not the only one who’s been frustrated, and now he gets to learn just how much her frustration matches his. “Just one then,” he says, gently easing a finger in her. Rey’s walls immediately attempt to clamp down, muscles fluttering on him. His hips buck up instinctively, shamelessly wishing it were _something else_ entering, but he’s busy taking care of _her_.

“Good?” he asks. Rey nods frantically, jerkily moving her hips before stopping, as if afraid that she shouldn’t do that. “Good. Now ride it.”

Rey tries to look at him, and he gives her a shitty grin in return, purposely grinding his palm over her clit until she yelps, her eyes rolling back, but she takes him up on his offer. A minute later Rey’s riding his finger, demanding a second one. He slips it in and she gasps.

“Your f-fingers are so mu—“ she gasps when he hits a particular spot, so he eases up to let her finish. “So much bigger than mine.”

“I should hope so,” he murmurs, once again curling his fingers and stealing her words away, his other hand pressing on her lower abdomen to force further friction until Rey is practically spazzing on top of him and has forgotten how to speak outside of _fuck_ , and _god_ , and _Ren_ every once in a while, the last of which he’s sure he’ll vividly remember for the rest of his life, right along with the positively sinful sound of the slick slapping of skin against skin. It only takes a few more minutes and Rey tightens around him so hard he’s nearly ejected, so he slams his fingers in one last time, for which he earns a hiss and a _Holy Fuck_ , letting her ride out her orgasm on them.

He only removes his digits when she finally collapses back against him, panting hard and spent much like three weeks prior. Kylo hugs her close, choosing to lick his fingers clean rather than wipe them on anything — not that he needs to be told to, really, because by God he’s been looking forward to doing that very specific thing for a while now, the thought of tasting her lodged in his head ever since he’d slipped a finger in. And she doesn’t disappoint.

“I just did that,” she says, staring at the ceiling with disbelief. He chuckles. “I just did that.”

“Better than your own?” he asks, stroking her hip. Rey turns and sits up, throwing him a dirty look as if he were fishing for compliments. Maybe he is. Then she looks down, her shifting having brought her attention to a more _pressing_ matter.

 _And this is where you move away, Kylo_.

He makes to dislodge her, to sit up so he can hide the tenting in his boxers now that he’s gotten what he wanted— having Rey panting above him.

“Oh no, you won't,” she says, the shy, hesitating girl before at odds with this one as she pushes him back and glares at him. Then she looks away, her bravado only lasting a second, eyes focused on her fingers splayed on his abs. She chews on her lips and he watches her closely, not daring to hope.

“My turn now,” she says. “Let me help.”

“Rey—“

Fuck,  _yes_ he wants her to help, but he feels selfish even thinking it. It’s one thing for him to be cheeky and offer to help her, it’s another for her to—

He forgets what he was thinking when her hand moves down tentatively, nails catching on the band of his boxers for a second before her fingers continue moving down. Then she looks at him and she must have liked what she sees because her eyes take on a dangerous glint, one he’d seen when she’d promised Penny retribution.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admits, and before he can say anything, Rey grips him in her hand and holds, making him see tiny stars on contact. “What we’re doing, this… this isn’t what I do,” she says, looking at him with a frown. “I don’t do this with other friends.”

Oh, sweet innocent girl, she’s going to fucking kill him one of these days.

“Rey—“ he says, wanting to tell her he would never in a million years think that she—

She strokes him. He forgets the rest of his sentence a second time.

“But you just gave me the most mindblowing orgasm of the last two weeks and I hate leaving debts unpaid,” she says, then smirks once again as she catches the look on his face, a dumbstruck look, lips parted and nostrils flaring. So she _had_ been touching herself, too. “What do they call that? Ah—Friends with benefits. Are we friends with benefits now?”

She’s joking, of course, but damn it all if it doesn’t sound like a fantastic idea when her hand’s wrapped around his cock over his boxers and she’s giving him experimental jerks. His nostrils flare once more.

“Do you want us to be?” his voice drops, the growl of that beast that snarls when others look at her bubbling up, uncoiling the heat and hunger in the pit of his stomach. Rey looks up, brows raised, then she chews on her lip and looks back down. He props himself up with his hands at his side while Rey straddles his thighs and continues her experimental ministrations, determined to get her to answer. His arms shake when Rey twists once more though, unable to keep himself upright as he falls back on the pillows with a hard breath and a soft curse, and Rey looks _proud_ at having elicited that sound out of him. But she seems to be considering his question, and he’s about to explode, one way or another, so he grabs her hand and stills it.

“I—“

“Do you want us to be?” he asks, tone demanding an answer.

A part of him says _please say yes, please say yes_ , but that might be his boner talking. The other tells him to be more sensitive, more level-headed, more—

Rey flushes, hesitating for only a second before she crawls up to him and carefully kisses his cheek. “Does it make me selfish or whorish if I say I don’t want to have to use my fingers after _that?”_

He blinks for a moment, then he laughs. His laughter booms around the room, broken only by sharp inhales when her hand starts moving again, only to die off when she squeezes in a specific way at his head and his laughter abruptly ends in a _Fuck!_ That only spurs her on. Rey grins, enjoying this way too much. He’d told her to use him for her own enjoyment. Well, she’d found another way of doing so.

“Fucking hell,” he pants, “Damn it, you gorgeous little minx, you’re going to make me fucking c—“

She picks up the pace. There’s another of those beautiful twists of her wrist, now that she’s managed to pull his boxers down. What the fresh hell is he even doing?

There’s very little time to think about it though as Rey hovers over him and he gets lost in her eyes, twitching in her hand and _trying_ not to be absurd and come so quickly but Christ her hand is on him, doing quick work of finding what works and what _really works_ and he just—

He groans, unable to hold back as he quickly forgets his train of thought and simply starts chanting her name like a mantra. She shuts him up with a kiss, greedy little thing stealing him of every word and every breath, and it doesn’t take him long to cum all over her hand and his naked abdomen.

She looks _triumphant_.

Kylo grabs her face and yanks yer down, kissing her hard enough to bruise after all that and refusing to let her dislodge herself from where she’s straddling him until he’s satisfied that he’s kissed her silly. Only when she looks dazed does he release her, watching her flop on her side of the bed. Good.

He stares at the ceiling, willing his heartbeat to return to normal, then looks at her. Rey’s starting to fall asleep again so he quietly slips out of bed and goes to clean himself, returning with a wet towel and gently wiping her hand clean much like he’d done that one night to her feet. It oddly makes him feel like he’s worshipping her, which perhaps he is.

“I can do that, you know?” Rey’s eyes crack open, giving him a soft, sleepy smile.

Kylo hums. If he were any crazier he’d jump her right now, because what else is there to do after they’ve jerked each other off, quite thoroughly at that? But she might have been acting on a spike of lust, and he needs to confirm it for himself.

“Did you mean what you said before?” he asks as he discards the dirty towel on the night table.

“About?”

He only looks at her. She knows exactly what he’s asking about. He waits for her to make up her mind and smiles when she gives the tiniest of nods, eyes closed and face once more tinged pink. He loves that he can make her blush. Then she laughs.

“I must be going insane,” she says, then looks at him. “This is crazy.”

“Being friends with benefits?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. Rey pinches her nose, obviously not enjoying hearing it articulated, and he starts to believe this is going to be one of those things they do but don’t speak about, so he snaps his mouth shut and waits for her to speak.

“You sure you don’t think I’m awful for…”

Kylo rolls his eyes. “Your catholic guilt is misplaced, Rey,” he says, finally rolling on his side to look at her, daring to place his hand on her stomach. Rey looks at it but doesn’t swat him off, instead choosing to study him. “We’re both adults with needs. If you want it to stop now, it stops now, but otherwise I’m happy to… help. You can’t tell me the shower head is more enjoyab—“

He gets a pillow to his face for the effort.

“Shut up,” she balks. He chuckles. “I just want to make sure it’s ok.”

“I could ask you the same thing, duckling,” he responds. “I’d hate for you to regret this.”

“I don’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“…Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she says this time with more conviction, as if they might not both realize it was a giant mistake a few hours from now.

They stare at each other for a few minutes, then Rey laughs.

“Did we just have an honest to God conversation about getting each other off like we’re talking about breakfast?”

He stares at her lips.

Screw it. She gave her approval. It’s been a _long_ two weeks.

“Well… about this new arrangement of ours,” Kylo crawls over to her like a predator then, giving her a knowing smirk as he swings one leg and one arm over her body and cages her underneath, then he leans down until he’s at her ear. Rey stills, body expectant, and he chuckles the darkest, most come-hither chuckle he knows, preening as she quivers underneath him when he speaks next, one hand gently moving down her hip.

“Let’s talk about breakfast.”

 

______________________

 

By the time they make it out of bed Rey looks dazed and gloriously disheveled, which is exactly how he wanted to see her, her legs quivering slightly. They hadn’t gone the whole way, but he’d been told very clearly what a talented mouth he had in the last twenty minutes. Now she keeps clearing her throat, looking parts euphoric and parts embarrassed. It would take both of them time to adjust to this new arrangement of theirs, Kylo perhaps having accepted it more eagerly than Rey, though he thinks by now he’s managed to get in her _very_ good graces. He wouldn’t push too far, but he’s happy to please.

Mostly he’s just sort of floating on his own sense of disbelief.

Did it happen too fast?

Did he do the wrong thing?

Did he coerce her in any way?

Had she just jumped into this and would she scream at him soon that she made a mistake?

He tries to tick off the list anxiously in his head, _just to make sure_ , but then Rey gives him a glowing, wide and goofy grin, though she’s still pink-cheeked, that blush refusing to leave. Well, she doesn’t seem to be objecting. He doesn't bring it up, though, somehow understanding that once outside of the sheets it becomes an untouchable subject; yet he could get used to this for as long as she stayed. Which reminds him…

“By the way,” Kylo speaks, eyeing a piece of toast as he looks for the words. “You never said, what are your plans now?”

Rey looks at him over her mug of tea, chewing her toast faster so she can speak as she sets the hot drink down.

“Well,” she begins, “I was hoping…” she breathes in deeply then looks at him again. “I was hoping that after the opening of the pub that I could stay for… you know… a while.”

 _A while_.

Yes, he could definitely get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A juicy treat for all of you ;p which I hope tides you over as I plan on skipping next week's update due to Adulting responsibilites. Next update will probably be in two weeks-ish (who's looking forward to sw celebration?! whoever's going, you are lucky buggers and I envy you).
> 
> Thanks to my internet wifu and beta EjBlaKit / [Darth-Ej](http://darth-ej.tumblr.com) for the term 'power-wanking'.


	33. Champagne bubbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the waltz that never ends: one step forward, but how many steps back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> E-YO! We're back! Thank you all for your support the last chapter (yooo so many comments I need to go answer now <3 been rereading them all for two weeks to get me back in the mood for writing, though. I was a little worn out there for a bit, but you guys always fuel me right back up), and I hope you enjoy this one! 
> 
> A preemptive GIANT HUG AND THANKS for the 2k kudos (holy fuck, such a big milestone for any fic of mine), and also for those who have contacted me on tumblr with song suggestions that remind them of this fic! I am slowly compiling them and will put them into a playlist at the end of this fic for all to enjoy. If you guys have other songs that immediately make you think Proposal, send them my way so I can listen! I'm always down for new music.
> 
> Welcome to the final arc of this story.

She’s attracted to him. _That_ realization had slammed into her like a hurricane two weeks ago on a chilly night at 1AM, when Kylo pressed his lips to her fingertips and promised her his undivided affections as long as she remained in Dingle, for better or worse, and she can’t decide which one it is. Curse the man and his stupidly romantic tales about direct lines to the heart as he’d gazed right at her.

Rey gnaws on her lip and stares at Maz’s ancient computer screen without really seeing. Not that she’d been able to see anything lately outside of a painfully handsome man named Kylo Ren, with his painfully gorgeous eyes and sensual pout, both of which are now engraved into the back of her lids like spots after staring at the sun too long. Worse yet, constantly being aware of him only makes her feel that she may be in well over her head this time, her heart and brain at odds with themselves. One screams that it feels _good_ and _right_ while the other shouts that she’d been burnt once, that it’s all going too fast.

Isn’t that the root of all her problems? She’d been quick to trust before, too much and too quickly, and look where it had landed her.

 _It’s all for show_.

Yes, yes she’d told herself that a billion times. It’s all for show. Except it’s one thing to tell herself that and another to—— The clink of glass on a counter snaps her out of it. Rey turns to find Maz quietly pouring them both tea.

“Done already?” her host asks over her shoulder, passing Rey a mug full of steaming mint tea that Rey accepts with a thin smile.

“No,” she admits while staring into it. “Haven’t so much as started, actually.”

Another instance in which her distraction has gotten the best of her. She’s supposed to be printing out more pub flyers and checking her clients’ emails, sending short, courteous responses that she’s out of the country and unavailable for work; that she’ll reach out again once she’s back in the states. Finding the will to write those messages, however, has become increasingly difficult, the task inducing a sort of gnawing anxiety Rey had hardly expected.

“Something on your mind, Rey?” Maz cuts through her thoughts again.

 _Right on the money_ , Rey muses wryly, sipping at her scalding tea to collect her thoughts. Maz waits with the sort of patience one only learns with age.

 _Of course_ Rey’s got things on her mind. She has _plenty_ of things on her mind, most of them revolving around a raven-haired, god-like lawyer who is very out of her league. The very same one who only two days ago had given her the most— _Don’t think about it! You’re in Maz’s house for god’s sake. She’s practically his mom._

Except telling herself not to think about Kylo — with his perfect fingers and his perfect mouth — goes about as well as trying not to blink, or breathe, or exist. Rey’s cheeks flush, forcing her to once again bury her face in her tea to avoid the ever watchful eye of her host.

“Sort of,” she replies after a moment. There’s no way out of this one, not with Maz standing there, but she’s not about to divulge her sexual escapades to the woman. Rey may have grown overly fond of Maz over the last… _God_ , _how long’s it been? Six weeks? —_ Now _that_ is startling all by itself — but Rey would be damned if she told Maz about how she and Kylo may have started to explore each other in the biblical sense lately. Another anxiety-inducing thought, that one. If she keeps this up Rey might just give herself an ulcer.

Maz, the ever-knowing saint that she is, takes Rey’s reluctance as her cue to back off the topic, though not without offering some well-meaning advice first. “I’m always here if you’d like to talk, though I recommend sleeping on whatever it is that’s got your brain so far away. Bring it back to the here and now.” Maz takes a sip of her tea, giving Rey a long look before she pats Rey’s shoulder on her way out the living room. “You seem like the sort of girl to keep it all well under control, I’m sure this won’t be a problem.”

Well under control. Does she? Does she really? She hasn’t had her _life_ well under control in months. At any other point in life Rey might have been very capable of agreeing to Maz’s statement with a firm _yes_ , but she’s not so sure she can now. Not when she’s torn between putting some well needed distance between her heart and Ren, no matter how bright and hot the spark of attraction shines between them, or throwing caution to the wind and _living_ for once. Impulsivity had never ended well for her in the past.

Except, every time she argues with herself one thought keeps cropping up, insistently demanding to be acknowledged: She’s attracted to Kylo Ren.

There, she’s admitted it as an actual coherent thought, if only to herself.

She’s attracted to him, to his smile and his charm, to his overprotectiveness and unbearably handsome face, the combination of his wit and trust — and the trust he’s coaxed from her — a heady, dangerous concoction. It had driven her to let down her walls and allow him in in more ways than one, and though mutual heavy petting doesn’t necessarily equate to permanently bonding with the guy and giving her heart over, it’s still a rather shaky patch of ground to stand on— especially when she’s still picking up the pieces from the _last_ time she’d made a foolish decision.

How does she even _deal_ with this? The last person she’d been drawn to had been Finn. The _only_ person she’d been drawn to. Look where things had gotten her, with a broken heart and her plans all up in the air, wandering the Irish countryside like a lost kicked puppy looking for a home. She may no longer hold it against her best friend, but that doesn’t change the outcome. The dice had rolled. How can she even allow herself this without making a giant mess of it all? Kylo had done more than would _ever_ be required of _anybody_ , much less a perfect stranger, but she’s got her own baggage to deal with no matter how easy he’s made it for her to trust him lately.

 _It’s a dangerous thing to trust_ , her brain warns.

Baring herself to the force of Nature that is Kylo Ren in such a short amount of time may be what finally crushes what’s left of her emotional fortitude to powder. She gnaws at her lower lip again, staring at the computer screen again.

Still, Maz’s advice isn’t without merit. _Here and now_.

Rey sips carefully at her piping hot drink then takes in a deep breath, opening up the first email. Work first, worry later. The sooner she can get these emails done the sooner she can go change for the wedding.

An hour later she bids Maz her goodbyes, her thoughts still as turbulent as when she’d arrived even as she promises Maz that they’ll see each other later.

The rest of the afternoon is spent fretting and going over finishing details with a fine-toothed comb to ensure everything’s in place for their first client that night. Rey helps as best as she can, offering the harried looking mother of the bride her assistance whenever she can while waiting for Kylo to return. He’d given her a quick kiss on the cheek and apologized, promising to return as soon as possible to help with the final touches, then taken off for the harbor to run some errand or other hours earlier.

When she sees him next he’s got a long suit-bag slung over his shoulder. He moves to her side, automatically placing his hand on his favorite spot at the base of her spine as he nuzzles her cheek with his nose in greeting, sending electricity through her nerves with the slightest of touches. Not that it hadn’t before, but now that she’s hyper aware of his every insanity-inducing action it becomes almost hard to breathe.

“Wait for me, I’ll be down in a bit,” he promises into her ear, planting a soft kiss to her temple as the harried-looking mother of the bride watches on. Rey clears her throat and watches him go before turning to her guest. What had been her name again? _Linda_ , Rey thinks. Damn Kylo and his ability to make her lose her bearings.

She seems to be doing that a lot lately.

“I’m sorry,” Rey apologizes, both for Kylo’s display of affection and the fact that her hands are trembling slightly, making the cake they’re carrying wobble a bit. Rey quickly corrects the tremor, giving Linda a pathetic but sincerely apologetic smile anyway, careful to keep her load steady as they make their way to the table by the willow tree.

“No worries, dear,” Linda says, tilting her chin towards the pub’s back entrance. “He’s all grown up now, I see.”

“Did you know him?” Rey asks, unable to help herself.

That elicits a laugh from Linda, who turns to Rey once the cake is firmly set on the table. “Of course I knew him! It’s hard to forget that face in a place like this, even if he’s turned from a tall, gangly boy to… well, let’s just say he’s not wanting for looks. I only met him a few times as a youngling before, but I saw him around plenty— small town, you see. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone talks. It’s nice to see him nice and settled. He deserves that.”

Rey can’t help the feeling that she’s hearing something she’s not supposed to, but her interest piques anyway. It’s so very strange to hear about a Kylo she’d never known from somebody else when, up until now, the man himself has remained so very tight-lipped about pretty much every facet of his life. So she nods, unsure of what to say and unable to reconcile the visual of him as a _tall and gangly boy_ with the bright wall of a man he is now. Then there’s the matter of _Ben_.

Now she’s got two distinct people in her head: Tall, gangly Ben and, for lack of a better description, a _taller_ , stacked Kylo.

“Shy boy, that one,” Linda comments with a far away look on her face, unknowingly adding to Rey’s mental image of Kylo while she busies herself with organizing the table, carefully placing the engraved cake knife to the side. “Didn’t talk much, but of course we’d all heard about him. How could we not? He suddenly showed up one day at his uncle’s doorstep with a duffelbag in tow, running from some trouble or another back home. Something to do with his parents, I hear.”

Now that is certainly new information. Rey frowns, desperately wanting to ask what the trouble was, but then Linda might wonder why Kylo’s supposed fiance doesn’t know about his past intimately, and Rey would find herself in a pickle. Thankfully for her, Linda loves reminiscing, offering up information unprompted while they walk away to get more plates and cutlery.

“It didn’t take long for his name to spread, you see. What with Luke being a town darling and all. Funny man, that one, if a little jaded around the edges,” Linda says with a smile, pointing a butter knife towards the pub. “We all thought it was odd for an American to choose this corner of nowhere to settle down and build a pub, but here was nonetheless for _decades_. It eventually became _the_ place for the town folk to grab a bite or a beer when the old man ran this joint, so they got to see plenty of Ben sulking in the shadows and avoiding eye contact.” Linda _tsks_ , but she’s got a motherly, indulgently sad look on her face. “Only seemed to start breaking out of his shell when old Maz took him under her wing. Poor kid. Seems like pub running runs in the family, though.”

Then Linda seems to recall who she’s talking to and her eyes bug up a little. “OH! But lord I’m probably boring you to tears. I’m sure you know all of this by now!”

Rey immediately throws up her hands, feeling her stomach drop and somersault with a sudden spike of alarm before immediately covering it up with her wit. “Oh! No, no, it’s perfectly fine,” she says, flashing Linda a blinding smile. “I’m glad you told me! I don’t know that much about his _young, gangly boy_ years. He prefers it if I think of him as somebody who’s never been anything but a sex god, you see.”

Linda laughs, shaking her head like she knows exactly what Rey’s talking about, which encourages her to continue, lowering her voice. “To be honest he doesn’t tell me much about those awkward teenage years.” Then she grins, watching as vendors walk through the yard, arms laden with food trays. “So how gangly and awkward was he, on a scale of one to ten?”

Linda’s eyes twinkle with laughter at having found something she can give the new pretty girl in town, ammunition for her future marriage, Rey thinks, but before she can say anything Kylo steps out, velcroing himself to her side as is his norm. His brows rise.

“Am I interrupting, ladies?”

Linda gives Kylo a once over and Rey a wide smile, “I’d say an eight, not that it matters now!” Linda giggles and Rey snickers, and Kylo, who knows he’s the butt of the joke but isn’t sure what the joke _is,_ only narrows his eyes at Rey until Linda distracts him by patting his forearm.

“Thank you for doing this for us, Ben,” she says before passing them by, unaware of Kylo’s immediate stiffening, though he manages a smile nonetheless. Rey watches it all happen, carefully noting the fact that he says nothing outside of _‘you’re welcome_ ’ before Linda begs off completely so she can go yell at a boy for bruising a few of the centerpiece flowers with his careless handling. Kylo turns his head, looking down at Rey from under heavy lashes like he knows she’s up to something, so Rey purposely slaps an innocent smile on her face.

He doesn’t buy it.

“Did you get what you needed?” she asks, trying to redirect his attention. It works well enough. He nods, letting his eyes flit around the yard, taking in the commotion before dipping his head down, nuzzling her nose with his and kissing her even though _nobody_ is paying them any attention. The kiss is gentle, a feather light brushing of his lips to hers, his breath soft and warm past her barely parted lips as he kisses her with such tenderness the butterflies in her stomach start beating their wings wildly. Rey pulls back after an eternity so she can look up at him, her heart at her throat.

When had _that_ started happening? Had it always happened? It’s hard to remember when she’s busy getting lost in the golden honey color of his eyes in the afternoon light, warm and sweet and she inexplicably attracted to it. Rey wets her lips, attempting to tear her gaze away and failing.

“Anything I can do?” he asks, oblivious to what he’s doing to her, to the thoughts skittering across her mind on his irises. She shakes her head to clear those thoughts away, but he takes it for an answer and instead lets out a soft hum, leaning in and pressing his lips to her temple again.

This is a dangerous game.

This is _such_ a dangerous game, and she’s sure to lose if she lets it continue. The switch inside her has been flipped much to her chagrin, even as she’s allowed herself to close the distance with this man in ways she hadn’t with…well… _anyone_. Not this quickly. Her eyes fall on his jawline, alarms blaring that she shouldn’t risk her heart again. How he manages to pull both the best and worst in her, she’ll never understand. The alarms blare louder, and she’s an idiot for ignoring them, for doing nothing but stand there looking at his jawline, jumping recklessly from one crazy situation to another.

She steps out of his reach just so she can get _air_ , trying to see if there’s anything else she can do, but the throng of people now filing in and out have basically taken over everything and Rey would be a nuisance to get involved now, so she admits painful defeat and turns to Kylo, who’s looking at her with that annoyingly perpetual amusement of his that makes her want to slap him. See if she can knock it off his face.

“Should we go get ready?” he asks. “The wedding party should be here in a couple of hours.”

When she agrees he grabs her hand, and Rey thinks he’d only asked as an excuse to do so, his usual restraint regarding her personal space having all but evaporated ever since she’d given him full permission to touch her. And boy he hadn’t been joking about his promises to shower her with his undivided attention. Rey looks at their intertwined fingers as she follows behind, then looks up at the back of his head. It turns out Kylo Ren is the epitome of touchy-feely when given free rein to do so. Rey tries to tell herself they’re only friends but—

“Find me when you’re done,” he squeezes her hand before dropping it, taking off for one of the showers upstairs while merrily whistling to himself. She stares at his retreating back.

Strange guy.

An hour later finds her squeezed into a little black dress, hair curled into soft waves with a little help from a handful of bobby pins, and her lips cherry red once more. Rey stares at herself in the mirror, doing her best to not smear lipstick on her teeth by chewing on it. One last critical glance later, Rey nods to herself and grabs the black pumps she’d had the foresight to buy at Kylo’s urging, feeling nervous for reasons she can’t quite fathom. When she walks into their shared bedroom she finds Kylo messing with the cuff links on the sleeves of his dark navy blue suit, looking entirely too dashing for it to be legal. His hands stopping mid-motion as he turns to take her in, cufflinks immediately forgotten as he steps closer, so close he takes up all of her vision. He almost reaches for her waist, only to pause at the last second after a hesitant heartbeat.

“Wait here,” he orders, turning around and pulling a long little box from atop the dresser, then clicking it open for her as he takes slow steps back towards her.

Inside there’s a pair of small, tasteful stud diamond earrings and a simple yet gorgeous necklace, a matching solitaire dangling from the silver chain. “For you,” he says, offering it forward.

Is _that_ what he kept going back to town for?

“Kylo, I can’t take this—“

He makes a face, pushing it closer to her. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

“But it’s—“ He doesn’t even give her a chance to finish that sentence.

“A gift,” he finishes for her, then tilts his head and gives her that lopsided smile she has quickly associated with panties dropping everywhere, “Please accept.”

Rey stares at the diamonds, which could probably cover her NYC rent for several months, then up at him, finding the most hopeful look she’s ever seen on his face. How is she to say no when he’s looking at her like that?

“Is this part of my _hostess_ pay?” she asks, trying to avoid calling it a gift, but feeling a little helpless in refusing when faced with his puppy eyes. Kylo chuckles.

“Sure,” he says, the laughter dancing in that single word, “if it’ll make you accept it.”

Rey sighs. He takes her soft exhale for acquiesce and gently grabs the necklace from the case, making torturously slow work of placing it around her neck and clicking the clasp closed as she stares at the diamond studs in her hands. Kylo gently places a kiss against her temple, running his fingers down her arms and leaving a trail of goosebumps behind, pulling her back against his chest, the intimacy of it all burning into her shoulder blades.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. Rey blinks.

“For what? I should be the one thanking _you,”_ she says.

“For accepting,” Kylo chuckles into her ear. “You look stunning, by the way.”

Her stomach flips for the hundredth time that day. She swallows, pulling away and running anxious fingers down her dress to smooth out the soft lace pattern, diamond earrings still clutched in her other hand.

“We should go,” she says, “The guests will be arriving soon.”

“Are you alright?” Kylo asks.

Rey mentally curses, hoping it doesn’t show on her face, her brain chanting _you’re going too fast_ over and over. She shouldn’t be accepting expensive gifts, or reveling in his compliments. But she is. She gives him a smile, one he once again sees right through, his eyes narrowing slightly on her lips. “I’m fine.”

It’s the way he studies her, she decides. That unnervingly even look he gives her when he knows she’s lying but refuses to call her out on it. She should be thankful for that, but it only makes her feel like a young, shaky teenager in her high heels. His fingers absentmindedly stroke her shoulder and she starts withering under his gaze, then he _again_ leans in to kiss her forehead, and doesn’t he realize that it’s his constant, tender affection _exactly_ what’s been throwing her for a loop?

It’s _so. Very. Constant_.

Rey licks her lips, which only brings his attention to it, pupils dilating for a moment before he focuses on her face with a small, sleepy smile that promises too many things Rey can hardly bring herself to imagine. They hadn’t been intimate again over the last two nights, too tired to do anything but fall asleep after two long, tiring days of hard work, but he’s stroking her shoulder the same way he’d stroked her body and she’s suspended on the edge of _what happens now_?

Waiting for the other shoe to drop has never been more agonizing.

She clears her throat, looking at her hands again only to remember she’s clutching the velvet case with his gift. It’s the perfect distraction. Rey opens it and busies herself with putting in the earrings, moving away to set the case on the dresser. It breaks the physical contact and eye fucking she’s been receiving long enough to dispell the tension, though he’s back to looking infuriatingly amused.

“Shall we?” he asks, motioning her forward.

Once outside Rey and Kylo are met with the fruit of their work, the last rays of sunset disappearing behind the horizon, taking with them their fiery pink and orange skies to give way to twilight, and the fairy lights Rey had almost broken a leg to install illuminate the place in a warm, dreamy haze. Her eyes rove over the tables, with their perfectly wrinkle-free table tops and breathtaking centerpieces, over the dance floor that had been installed the day prior, and over the guests now trickling in, kids running between legs and tables already. Her heart pinches, a twinge of longing coursing through her veins.

The thought is quickly interrupted when Linda appears in front of them, once again thanking them for all of their help. Her cheeks are already a bit pink and Rey thinks the Mother of the Bride must have started her partying a little earlier, so she gives the woman a giant grin and squeezes her hand.

“It’s our pleasure,” she says, to which Kylo nods. “Please enjoy the night.”

“And you as well!” Linda says with a chirpy smile, “Please, please. Go ahead and have fun as well. You’re more than welcome to. You have worked so hard.”

“Oh no,” Rey says, putting up a hand, “we’re just here to help—“

“Nonsense!” another voice chimes in. Rey, Kylo and Linda all turn to see Maz as she makes her way to them, her outfit a bright mishmash of jewel tones that somehow work _just fine_ on her. She comes to stand next to Linda, offering her congratulations on her daughter’s wedding while passing her a gift. Then she turns shrewd eyes on Rey with a grin. “I bet you’ve never been to an Irish wedding. There’ll be plenty of time for work later!”

Rey and Kylo exchange a glance before he gives her a small shrug. Might as well. It’s not like Maz won’t force them to if they decline.

“Go on, go on!” Linda urges as she loops an arm with Maz. “Maz, do you have a moment?”

Kylo and Rey watch them go, Rey noticing the way Linda keeps glancing back at them over her shoulder while whispering with Maz.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Rey asks. Kylo snorts.

“Nothing good,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair. “Come on,” he says, tugging her by the waist. “If we’re going to have to deal with their gossiping so early in the evening, we’re going to need a drink or twenty.”

Turns out Kylo had been exactly right.

Three hours and two and a half champagne flutes later, the topic of conversation turns to Rey and Kylo, or more specifically, their _relationship_. Rey finds herself speaking first when the next question comes up.

“So how long have you been together?” a pudgy, kind-looking gentleman asks, the silver spun coils of his hair and blindingly white smile a stark contrast to the dark wrinkles of his skin.

“Two years,” Rey says, a well-practiced smile on her face as she multiplies her two-month stay by twelve. It has certainly _felt_ that long. Kylo bites on his lower lip, trying hard not to smirk. From a little farther away Maz watches on with a wicked smile and a glint in her eye, obviously enjoying the spectacle. “I met him at an airport.”

Kylo cocks an eyebrow, no doubt remembering the time _he’d_ lied through his teeth about their encounter. She grins at him, a glint of mischief in her as she describes their first encounter.

“It was late, I looked like a frightful mess, and my phone battery had died. I worked up the courage to go bother this perfect stranger in the middle of the night and ask him for the time. He stared me down,” well, she’d stick to a bit more truth than _he’d_ given, at least. “I jumped to conclusions. My first thought had been wow, what a scary, unfriendly fellow, but then he looked at me again and I fell head over heels with his eyes.”

 _OK, so much for the truth._ Well, then again…

It might not be in the right order or even the right _timeframe_ , but it’s no less true. Rey catches her lower lip. When _had_ she noticed? Her audience, however, is already captivated, so she clears her throat to dispel the creeping blush and smiles. Kylo watches her intently, both eyebrows high on his forehead now with a knowing look in his eyes, amusement dancing on his face as he gives her center stage even though his hand remains protectively wrapped around her waist.

“As it turns out, he is neither scary nor unfriendly,” Rey continues, replaying the events of the next so many days, so many _weeks_ , with a far away look. “He turned out to be kind, attentive, _sweet_ , not to mention one of the hottest guys I’ve ever met. His eyelashes are offensive with how full they are, and that pretty pout of his…”

The small crowd around them chuckles — it seems the whole of the town is interested in hearing _this_ story, and even those who aren’t immediately crowding around them still have an ear out for anything Rey might have to say. Kylo squeezes her hip, eyes bright and the left corner of his mouth fighting to lift into a lopsided smile. _That stupidly seductive lopsided smile_. Rey turns to look at him, the crowd falling away in an instant when he focuses all of his attention on her as if there could be nobody else in the universe but her. It makes her swallow just a little harder, her heart skipping beats and trying to get ahead of itself.

“In the end, it seemed like we were destined to be with each other.” _Stuck_ with each other, really. “He’s gentle and patient.” Rey thinks back to everything she’d learned about him by sheer proximity and feels a need to amend, “at least with me.” She hears a snort she’s pretty sure belongs to Maz from elsewhere. “The more I got to know him the more I thought, this guy’s pretty great.”

Kylo finally smiles, unable to keep the shit-eating grin off his face. “Am I?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

“Maybe,” he says, turning her around and wrapping both arms around her waist possessively, pulling her in for a not so innocent kiss. To anyone who’s not aware of their ruse, they might look like they’re more in love than even the bride and groom themselves. Rey hears dreamy sighs and chuckling around her but it all sounds distant, her senses inundated by Kylo as he nips at her lip gently and coaxes her into the sweetest of kisses. Until that is, they’re interrupted by the DJ announcing that it’s time for the bride and groom to have their first dance.

 _That_ finally pulls everyone’s attention away, much to Rey’s relief as she slumps a little, kept upright by Kylo’s arm around her. They all move away to give the couple some room, both Rey and Kylo choosing to move to the very back of the audience where they can speak in peace.

“Am I?” he asks again, refusing to let go of his previous question. Rey wrinkles her nose up at him.

Well, two could play this game.

“Are you what?”

“The hottest guy you’ve met.” He says, moving to whisper the words in her ear.

“Your head’s already big enough, sir.”

Kylo leans down, chuckling, sending shivers up and down her spine which he eases with a thumb. He _knows_ what that does to her and exploits it just the same. The little bastard.

“Am I pretty great then?” he murmurs.

Rey pushes at him half heartedly but smiles nonetheless, trying to keep her eyes on the dancing couple, her chest squeezing with a hard pang of a possibility long lost but not forgotten. That should — _would_ have been her up there in white, looking forward to starting the family she’d never had. That dream feels so far away now. Rey sighs, untangling herself from Kylo’s arms and stepping away, her sudden bubbly mood fizzling and dying like so many champagne bubbles. The night sours immediately.

“I need air,” she says. Kylo frowns but lets his hand fall from her back, nodding.

Rey steps away from the crowd, from the lights and the beautiful centerpieces, the lit candles and the wedding cake with its adorable glass bride and groom cake topper, berating herself for allowing her feelings to get wrapped up in it all. She had never _been_ that person, had never given into bouts of self-deprecation.

Then again, the heart desires what the heart desires, and her heart isn’t sure what it desires anymore, but _some_ things never change. She looks back behind her towards it all, taking in the crowd of well-dressed, happy party goers and Kylo Ren towering above them all, then shakes her head at the mess of signals her brain immediately starts sending her, choosing instead to open up the gate and step out into the cool night air away from the noise and the music. Her back hits the rough stone wall where she slumps, the empty front yard her only companion. Rey sighs, a half spent flute of champagne in one hand and that tell tale sign at her fingertips, a tingling of nerves stretched thin that announce the arrival of unwanted tears.

What is she even _doing_? She should be home now, not here, trying to keep tears at bay. She rubs at her eyes, smearing her mascara and caring very little about it. All she’d ever wanted was to belong. Was that such a horrible thing to pine after?

“Are you alright?”

Rey looks up to find Kylo rounding the corner. He moves slowly, like one would approach a skittish deer, his frown deepening once he gets a good look at her. Rey sniffs.

“Yeah.”

He steps closer, a thumb reaching up to wipe away a wayward tear, and her stomach drops at the resignation weaved into his soft whispered words. “You’re an awful liar.”

Resentment bubbles in her chest, the resignation she hears in his tone of voice echoing her own. It immediately triggers something deep inside of her. Self-loathing.

Rey tilts her head out of the way, freeing her cheek from his hand as she looks down at her shoes.

“So what if I am?” she asks. Another sniffle. “What if I’m a bad liar? More reason for me not to stand around and pretend to be happy while I watch someone else dance their way towards their happy ending. I’d rather just stand here and mope by myself if it’s all the same to you.”

Kylo tilts his head, pushing his hands into his pockets, making her immediately regret her words. It’s not his fault, either.

He huffs.

“It only looks like a happy ending _now_ ,” he says, “but this is just the beginning for them. Not every marriage is happy, and not everyone gets that perfect family they want.”

It takes her two seconds to forget her regret. She knows he speaks reason. It’s not like he’s lying about it, and she thinks that maybe he’s just trying to make her feel better, but the reminder that she had never known either of those things, and would probably never know them at this rate, sparks an angry flame in her. Finn had always warned her she’d always been too quick to jump to anger. This time is no different. Rey purses her lips, refusing to look him in the eye even as the spiteful words fall from her mouth before she can think it through, that resentment in her chest spreading like fire on gasoline.

“What would you know of that? At least you have a family.” She bites.

And then…

Silence.

_He suddenly showed up one day at his uncle’s doorstep with a duffelbag in tow, running from some trouble or another back home._

Eventually her brain catches up to her mouth and Rey looks up again, realizing what an absolute idiot she is.

“I mean—“ she begins, immediately trying to apologize.

“I know what you meant.” He says curtly.

Gone is the soft whisper, the soothing balm of his baritone. She can’t really see his expression, but she knows what she would find there if she could. Not that she needs to, anyway. The stiff posture of his silhouette tells her all she needs to know. Rey reaches forward. Kylo steps back.

_Something to do with his parents, I hear._

Damn it.

When would she learn?

“Kylo,” she says.

Another backward step.

“I’ll be inside.”

Kylo turns on his heel and walks away, leaving her with a half empty flute of champagne and an intensifying tingling in her fingertips for entirely different reasons now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Judi Dench voice: What's the deal with Ben Solo?


	34. Train tracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Rey’s footsteps follow him into the kitchen, shuffling much faster than his own stomping as he makes his way towards the empty pub floor. It’s the perfect place to pace.  Except she’s relentlessly following behind, which means there will be little pacing to be done. He looks towards the stairs, his quickest escape route even if it means getting stuck in their bedroom. He _could_ go back to the party, but he’s suddenly in no mood to see people being happy and dancing, either. If she’d wanted to put him in as bad a mood as her own, she’d succeeded.  

“Kylo,” Rey calls after him, his name on her tongue an insistent ringing bell in the empty room. 

Kylo breathes in deeply, his lashes fluttering closed as he counts back from ten and tries to keep the twitch at his temple from becoming pronounced. He hadn’t expected her to follow this fast. Maybe wallow in her own misery for a while, or sneak in after he’d left, leaving him snarky remarks on paper taped to their door like she’d done before. But no, she’d followed _this fast_. 

_Not that you didn’t want her to_. 

Her doing so, however, leaves him no room to stew in peace. Kylo growls under his breath, which makes Rey stagger to a stop, thinking it was directed at her. His shoulders slump for a second before he steels himself against her pretty eyes, turning around to regard her silently while a block of ice settles at the bottom of his stomach.

“Wait, Kylo, please—“

He should not snap. He would _not_ snap. Though her absolute _gall—_

_“What?”_

Rey jumps. 

_“_ I’m sorry,” she says, rushing to get the apology out even as she wobbles on her high heels from having followed too quickly. Kylo looks her up and down and tries to remind himself of all the reasons why he likes this girl. Those reasons might just keep his temper in check. 

“Save it,” he responds. 

_Maybe not_. Yet what had he ever done to deserve that? that’s right, nothing. Kylo may be the first one to agree that he deserves a whole lot of bad shit in life some days but that one was entirely uncalled for. Rey flinches, lips downturned, eyes glassy and lashes damp with unshed tears as she steps up to him. Even her high heels don’t quite bring her eye to eye with him, which any other time might have been endearing, but he’s too annoyed to notice it now.

“I really am,” she says,  “Sorry, I mean. I didn’t mean what I said—“

His fingers twitch with the effort not to bunch them into fists or shove them in his pockets like a petulant child.

“No, you meant exactly what you said,” he says as evenly as he can. Rey had stepped on the _one_ thing he had always had a hard time being level about, and the knowledge that she can hardly know exactly how much it stings is the only thing that keeps him in check now. That doesn’t mean he’s not bitter, though. Said bitterness laces itself into his next words when he continues, “I have a family, so I don’t know what it’s like to feel alone, or lonely, or what it’s like to yearn for love, right?”

Rey flinches once again through every single accusation, her face dropping further until she’s all but looking at her toes. A small voice in the back of his head tells him to drop it, that she’s not at fault here, but his mouth and his brain are on two different tracks right now.

“You know nothing about that side of me. I didn’t deserve that, Rey.”

She hunches in on herself, knowing what he says is true, then shakes her head.

“No, you did not,” Rey mutters, her fingers fidgeting at the stem of a half-empty flute of champagne. 

He should stop talking _now_. Hadn’t this been done once? He recalls a similar situation with her, except instead of looking at him with hatred through her tears now there are just _tears_ and regret. Kylo turns around so she can’t see him, just for a moment, and rubs the heel of his hand into his forehead then drags his fingers down, stretching the skin taut as he inhales deeply. He holds it on the count of ten, then releases it, annoyed at how damn _weak_ he’s become around this girl. What good does steeling himself against her pretty eyes do if they come with tears?

_You’re a sucker, Kylo Ren._

Yes, yes he is. He’s the biggest sucker to exist upon God’s green earth, and all because of this small woman who has crawled under his skin and made a home for herself there. He shakes his head then turns back around, pursing his lips and looking down at her. Rey looks both hopeful and scared that he might actually walk away. Kylo gives his lower lip a quick swipe to moisten it, catching the soft flesh between his teeth and biting down so as to bring himself to _focus_ , Rey’s face making it hard for him to think objectively. Or maybe it’s the fact that he can feel his anger and resentment fizzling out on him against his will. There are two things he’s good at in life: practicing law and holding a grudge against his parents. Apparently, that same ability doesn’t apply where Rey is concerned. He remains silent, though. Even if his annoyance is fading, his petulance isn’t.

Rey fidgets under his gaze, twisting the flute of champagne back and forth between thumbs and index fingers. 

_She doesn’t know_.

He shouldn’t hold it against her that she doesn’t know anything about him, no matter how much her words had stung. She doesn’t _know_. 

That doesn’t mean he has to make it easier on her just yet. Kylo cocks an eyebrow.

“I didn’t deserve that and?” he prompts. Rey looks up, confused. She tilts her head, blinking to clear her vision and his heart squeezes, so he digs in his heels, rooting himself to the spot to keep from stepping forward and wrapping her up in a hug.

“And... I’m sorry?” she repeats. Kylo frowns.

“Try again.”

It’s _her_ turn to frown, her face tilting in the opposite direction like a puppy. Damn girl and her cute mannerisms and that beautiful set of lips that just beckon him to—

“And...” Rey tries again, but she’s whip-smart and it doesn’t take her long. She stands a little straighter, like a girl ready to give her teacher the correct answer. “And I won’t do it again, nor will I make further assumptions about  your family.”

There.

That’s about as much as his resolve could handle anyway. His shoulders relax and he steps forward, quickly plucking the champagne glass from her hands and setting it aside, looping his arms around her waist and tugging her in before she has time to protest. Time for a reward, since good girls get rewarded. He dips his head in, nuzzling her jawline with his nose and feeling her slowly melt in his arms. 

“Thank you,” he whispers into her skin, placing a soft kiss there.

_You really are a sucker_. 

Kylo informs the little voice in his brain to promptly shut up and starts peppering Rey with soft kisses to the jaw, trailing them up to her ear and giving her earlobe a nibble that makes her shiver and shake in his arms. He chuckles and keeps moving up, to her temple, then further, until he plants a soft kiss on her forehead. 

“I can’t stay mad at you.”

Rey looks up, eyes a little dazed. Kylo kisses the tip of her nose, feeling his whole core warm the longer he holds her in his arms. People might call it butterflies. He calls it stupidity.

He swallows hard, then leans in and kisses her tears away, three little words sitting on the very tip of his tongue and an anxious need to say them bubbling at the back of his throat. He can’t stay mad at her because he _likes_ her. Perhaps more than likes. 

He might just be a fool in love. 

Rey remains silent, looking at him with an indecipherable expression on her face so he bites back his tongue to keep from ruining what small truce they’ve forged between them, unwilling to risk the one good thing he’s got going on for him right now, and chooses instead to consider the matter closed when they step back into the party. 

Or at least, he _thinks_ it’s closed. The rest of the universe doesn’t seem to agree with him.

It begins with innocent enough questions from locals who knew his uncle: _So, where is Luke? How long’s he plan to be away? Does he plan to return?_

Then it devolves:  _So, when’s the last time you’ve talked to that funny man? Is he visiting family?_

Maz keeps glancing at him for a reaction that Kylo refuses to give, and Rey keeps alternating between looking bashful every time his family is brought up and looking intrigued by his responses.

Then he makes the mistake of correcting somebody on his name.

No, it’s not Ben anymore. _What a surprise that is!_

_ So why did he change it? _

Kylo refuses to answer that, giving the most pleasant smile he can instead.

“Business purposes,” he says, which seems to quiet some of the whispers if not necessarily assuage people’s confusion or their piqued interest, including Rey’s.  By the end of the night he’s both mentally wrung out and physically tired, and as they clean up the place and finish putting the tables away for the night, the only thing Kylo wants to do is go upstairs and wrap himself around Rey then falls asleep.

Rey has other ideas.

She corners him in the kitchen after everything’s been cleared, hands folded in front of her in the biggest display of meekness he’s ever seen from her. Kylo arches an eyebrow.

“I really am sorry,” she says, managing to look him in the eye this time. 

“So you’ve said,” says Kylo, turning to lock the doors. He’d gotten in the habit after Rey had badgered him about it enough, despite knowing nobody in this town would dare break in here. When he faces her again, Rey’s lips are turned down at the edges. “It’s fine, duckling.”

He’s particularly proud of himself now for _not_ snapping. She’d taught him restraint after all, and perhaps he’d taught her something of boundaries—

“Would it— ah,” she starts, looking at her hands. “What you said about me not knowing much about you. That’s been on my mind lately. I’ve just been thinking… if maybe we could talk about it?”

_Perhaps not._

“Rey,” he says. Rey snaps to attention at the sound of her name and he suppresses the sigh he wants to let out with all his might. “Can we just go sleep?”

She frowns and he immediately hates it. That frown has been gracing her pretty face way too often this night. He leans in. 

“It’s been a long day,” he says, moving to kiss the frown away only for her to move back out of reach. Kylo blinks. That’s a first.

“Yes, but I still mean what I just said.”

He knows that tone. That's the no-nonsense tone. And she does have a point, but does she have to make it now? Well, _of course_ he had to go and pick the most stubborn, persistent woman in the history of ever to get attracted to. 

_Like you’re one to talk_.

The little voice in his head would do well to be silent right about now. He regards her for a moment. Fine. Fine.

“Fine. I guess knowing each other is an important part of any relationship,” he says, relenting, only to smile at the way her cheeks flush. The word _relationship_ startles her, but no less so than it does him. He finally leans in and kisses between her eyebrows, unable to keep his mouth off her in any capacity now that he’s allowed to do so. “But can we do it tomorrow? I’m tired.”

Little had he known when he’d uttered that promise that it would haunt him to the grave.

“What’s your favorite food?” she asks in the morning after their breakfast’s been had and their coffee’s half finished. Kylo shrugs. 

“Not picky,” he says, twirling a spoon in his coffee and wishing it were stronger. Rey watches him and waits for a heartbeat, probably trying to figure out the next question. 

“Favorite animal?” she asks.

“Don’t have one,” he answers without missing a beat. Rey huffs, obviously not enjoying these non-answers. Kylo smirks as he sips his coffee.

“Favorite color?”

Here he stops. The answer would have been the same as the previous one. Instead he looks up, at her lips, eyes squinting to pick out the right shade.

“Pink,” he says, “but not just regular pink. It’s a rosy pink. A little coral. Hard to pin down, but soft when you finally do so.”

Rey, who hasn’t noticed him staring makes a face into her mug. “Wouldn’t have pinned you for a pink lover.” When she looks up he’s got a silly smirk on his face and Rey doesn’t know what to do with that, so instead she goes back to her coffee.

“Alright,” she says, after gulping down some. “What was your favorite game as a child?”

Kylo tilts his head sideways, looking up as if trying to remember. 

“No games, but I had a weird stuffed doll I played with that my mother made me. I carried it everywhere,” he admits. Rey giggles, but then his promise to open up comes back to bite him in the ass.

“Do you miss her?” she asks. 

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

This is _not_ where he’d wanted this conversation to go. Kylo sets his coffee down, internally cringing already because it’s not like he can walk this back, but there are just certain topics he’s not willing to touch yet— certain things he’s not sure he’ll be able to touch _ever_. His mother is one of those topics. He goes for the blandest answer he can give, hoping she’ll move from it.

“I suppose.”

Rey studies him for a second, puzzled. “ What do you mean _you suppose_?” she asks, clearly not understanding. And from her point of view, he can see why. But from _his_ point of view, well, it’s no one's business.

“I meant I suppose,” he repeats, picking up his coffee again and using it as a shield from her questioning, her piercing gaze. He’s being a downright chicken and he’s not even remotely afraid to admit it, nor remorseful about it. That doesn’t mean he has to answer her. Rey reminds him of his mother in that particular regard. Those eyes of hers read too much, see too much, make him want to fidget and shift his weight while Rey watches him from her perch on the kitchen island.

“Did something happen?” she asks, seeing right through his reluctance, “I understand if you don’t want to talk abou—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

There. He can’t be more direct than that. Right? Rey bites on her lip, debating on whether she should continue. After a few minutes tick by she sighs and sets her mug on her thighs.

“I’m just trying to understand,” she says, chewing on those beautiful rosy pink lips, bringing out the color of blood underneath and making him want to dive in and nibble on them, too. Instead he stays rooted to his spot.

“Understand what?”

“You.”

His heart does a weird flop. He almost smiles. That is, until she speaks again.

“I just don’t understand how somebody could just go on about their lives and not miss their parents,” Rey murmurs, sounding astronomically sad. That’s right, she has no parents. She probably misses them dearly. 

He lets out a long, throaty exhale of exasperation as he tells himself to both control his temper and mind his tongue, warring with himself. Of course she wouldn’t understand. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Rey is that she places family above everything else, including herself. Of _course_ she couldn’t understand the concept of being estranged from one’s parents. She hardly remembers her own mother.  And it's not like he wouldn't give _anything_ to have the same thing she yearns for, a happy family along with the happy ever after; but then there’s the fact that he just _doesn’t want to talk about it_.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asks. Rey _once again_ frowns, which is now starting to annoy him that he can’t seem to be able to erase that from her face no matter what he does, like an itch he can’t quite reach to scratch.

“I just—”

“Rey, _please_.” He asks, perhaps a little more tersely than he’d intended.

Rey opens her mouth and he closes his eyes. Skies help him. But then no words come. He opens his eyes again to find Rey nodding and pouring more cream into her coffee, cheeks burning red and an entirely dissatisfied look on her face.

Yes, he’s a chicken, but he’s a chicken who’s kept his secrets. The rest of the day — the rest of the _week_ , really — finds him trying to make it up to her in any way he can, usually by showering her with affection. Yet as the days pass and Rey comes up on her second full month with him, their dynamic starts changing. Rey never once brings up his past again or asks him questions, yet the easy-going honeymoon period starts fading, and though he had never expected it to feel that way, or even to stumble into such a situation, Rey starts withdrawing from him slowly. It feels like regressing right back to when she’d thought Kylo had kept Maz’s ring around for Katherine, out of some insane idea she’d concocted that he’d been heartbroken over a failed almost-proposal. 

She doesn’t go sleep elsewhere, at least, which is always a plus in his book and allows him to sleep a little easier, but the longer the days become the more it seems to him that Rey is once again trying to put distance between them, and he starts feeling _twitchy_ , as though there were some invisible finish line in the distance, some cut-off point. His fear of her leaving starts bleeding into his days. His fear that she had never quite said a thing about _when_ she’d be leaving, just _‘a while_ ’— Those two words had been a blessing weeks ago but now they feel more like a curse.

When he asks her if her plans have changed, Rey says no and gives him a smile, but the smiles are sad, her beautiful eyes clouding over whenever somebody asks about their engagement; Kylo’s stomach drops to the floor, knowing that it’s fake, and he gets dragged by the undercurrent of his conflicting emotions, all of which are made worse by the nagging feeling that he’s done something wrong. _Again_.

That tension builds, and builds, and builds, but he doesn’t know how to address it so he just… _doesn’t._ His sense of self-preservation telling him that if he does, whatever they’ve grown to have between them might just shatter. It finally comes to a head on a warm summer Saturday evening once they arrive from what he’d thought had been a lovely dinner in town, away from the gossip and the people and the weird bubble they’d created for themselves in Luke’s pub, even as they’d spent the night discussing what to do for their grand opening in a week. 

Rey removes her shoes and places them by the door, clicking the lock before busying herself with throwing her hair into a messy bun atop her head. Kylo’s busy putting away the bottle of wine they’d brought with them when Rey approaches. 

Her cautious touching of the counter’s edge and her silent, hesitant steps should have been a dead giveaway, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.

“Say, Kylo?” she asks. He hums to indicate he’s paying attention, his view of her obscured by the open cupboard door. “I was thinking—”

…

He stills, hand hovering in the air above the bottle he’d just set down. The last time she’d said that they’d nearly waltzed themselves into the fight of the century. He counts the seconds it takes for her to finish her sentence.

“Well,” she starts, hesitating as she looks for the words. Whatever comes out of her mouth next might be _nothing_ , or it might just…

“Well, what do you think about inviting your parents to the opening? Since it’s kind of a big deal and all.”  
It might just be _the wrong thing to say._

Her voice is so soft, so full of hope. Kylo leans forward, letting his forehead thump on the edge of the cupboard ledge inside as he very slowly sets his hand down. Suddenly he realizes what’s been happening and he both wants to laugh and scream.

“Rey.”

“No, hear me out!” she says, and Kylo finally pries himself from his hiding spot behind the cupboard door. “I mean, wouldn’t it be… nice? Maybe?” she says, hope painted all over her smile. 

If Kylo could just stop time, rewind it, and start over, he would. Twenty minutes from now he will scream at himself to do just that. 

Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

“Could we just drop it with my parents?” he says, his walls immediately going up as he draws himself up to his full height, one hand hovering on the cupboard door to shut it, the unfinished motion completely forgotten now. “I’ve said before I don’t want to talk about it, Rey, and you made me a promise.”

Rey’s inability to back down is one of those things he adores about her. Just not right about now. She squares her shoulders and stands up straighter as well, her brows stitching together and her bewilderment at his words out on full display for him to see.

“And you made _me_ one! I know I promised as well, but—” 

His patience snaps, right along with the flick of his wrist that sends the cupboard door slamming shut. To her credit, she doesn’t even flinch. What would it take for her to just _drop it_?

“No _buts_ , Rey! I wasn’t just kidding when I said that. I know you’re trying to make up for what was said last week, and you may just have the best of intentions, Duckling, but if you’re trying to fix things for me, butting out of it right now would be a _very_ smart thing to do.”

“You can be an absolute _ass_ , Ren, did you know that?” she bites, her chest rising and falling with sharper breaths and he can see how wounded she is by what he’d said, taken her desire to make his life better and spun it on its head. He remembers her making a deal with him to call Finn just because she thought perhaps he could try and mend things too, if only she did so, and Kylo’s already starting to regret ever saying anything, “So what if I tried to understand the situation better? That's all I wanted. You’re the one who said we should know more about each other. What’s so wrong with talking to your parents? If you’d only stop running from it you’d—”

As it turns out, the fight of the century had merely been delayed rather than averted.  His mouth gets away from him before he can fully process what he just said.

“You’re one to talk about running,” he scoffs, staring her down. Rey’s brows rise, immediately going on the defensive. "I'm not the only coward here."

“Excuse me?” Never had he heard her voice go up so high, not even when screaming at the skies about their misfortunes a lifetime ago. Then it lowers, the bell-like sound he’d come to fall in love with taking on a deadly timbre as she leans in and points a finger at him. “You—”

“You are _so_ overstepping right now, Rey,” he cuts her off, trying to veer this away from the inevitable, but Rey’s got her eyes narrowed at him and he can see that finish line looming closer, the whole thing playing out in his head like a horrible train wreck and the finish line that one spot on the tracks where everything goes off the rails then crashes and burns. 

“I just don’t understand!” she says, her eyes pleading for him to see her point of view, “and I’ve tried! I’ve tried, Kylo. You were the first one to say I know almost nothing about you and I’m trying to understand you but you just won’t _let_ me, and there’s all this stuff about you I don’t even know, and Linda said—”

Wait up.

“What?” he asks. Rey stops mid-word. 

“Well, Linda said,” she starts, but can’t seem to bring herself to finish. Only when he prompts her with a sharp glare does Rey give in, “she said you ran away from home and came to live with your uncle, and Maz has hinted at it before and I just thought, if we could just get everyone here, maybe—”

He’s seeing red now. All this time he’d assumed that she hadn’t known a thing and yet here she is, rehashing his past, albeit vaguely so. 

“Then maybe what?” he says, stepping forward and closing the space between them. Fifteen minutes to that moment when he starts wishing he could rewind time, and he would rewind from _right here_. “Get them here so you can play house with them, attempt to fix the poor broken boy so you can feel better about yourself?”

Her face says all he needs to know. That cut deep into the bones of the girl with no parents, her wounded heart worn on her sleeve. This train is crashing and going up in flames with every breath of theirs that mingles together, and yet he can’t seem to back down and neither does she. 

“That’s not what I want,” she defends, stubbornly setting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Kylo cocks an eyebrow.

“Isn’t it?” he asks, words sharp enough to cut glass. His brain tells him to stop talking but his mouth has no filter. “Because it seems like you are. Like you suddenly found a pet project and have dug in your heels, and refused to listen no matter how many times I told you to drop it, and the only way you’ve managed to show your displeasure is to start withdrawing from me all week.”

At _that_ last comment, Rey’s mouth drops open. He waits with baited breath for her to confirm his suspicions, but Rey only gapes, “What on earth are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about us, Rey!” he finally shouts, having lost all traces of patience. “I’m talking about you pulling away and being distant—”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”  Rey crosses her arms, and he once again wonders how somebody so small could ever possibly look so threatening. Her voice has risen to match his and he’s pretty sure the whole neighborhood must be awake by now, but he can hardly care. His attention’s all being swallowed up by the storm that is Rey Jakken, and he willing to match it in its ferocity.  Time stops for a second as he considers her question, then explodes forward again with the last shred of what sanity he had when he finally throws his head back and laughs.

“What does that have to do with anything, she says,” he chuckles. Rey only tightens her arms under her breasts, glaring at him for all she’s worth. “What does that have to— It has to do with _everything, Rey!_ How dare you practically call me a coward for running away from a past _you know nothing about,_ when here you stand, after having run away from your issues and that idiot ex of yours, staring at a maybe-something right in the nose and instead of just _going for it_ like you’ve been going for _every other fucking thing_ since the second I’ve met you, you just start to pull away from me!”

“Don't go dragging Finn into this. You called me a coward first, and I know nothing about it because you won’t share it with me!”

“But it _is_ about Finn. It's always been about Finn, hasn't it? despite the fact that I've been right here. And yet you mope about Finn, and the perfect little life you wanted with him but never got a chance at having, accusing me of not understanding you as if I don't want the exact same thing out of life, but no. It's always about  _fucking Prince Charming_ with you. Who happens to be an idiot, by the way, in more ways than one for not just jumping at the chance. You should be counting your blessings. You dodged a bullet, because he clearly knows nothing of commitment. Much like you, apparently. Why would I _possibly_ share my past with a person who might just up and _leave me!_ Explain that to me, Rey, because I don’t understand what’s going through that pretty little head of yours—”

“Don’t you dare,” she warns, narrowing her eyes and uncrossing her arms, tiny fists bunched up as if ready to knock at him. “Don’t you _dare_ condescend—”

“Then don’t you dare psychoanalyze me!” he spits out, “You, an orphan,” Oh but that hurt, and he wonders how two people who had never known each other two months ago could find it within themselves to suddenly spit out such hurtful things. Perhaps he’s lying to himself. Perhaps they’d learned to know each other better than he thought. “You assume that you can just pick apart my past and put it back together while running from your own giant shitstorm and yet you _refuse_ to see what’s right in front of your god damned nose!”

Flames. There is nothing left but flames here. Soon it’ll be ashes, he thinks, watching her face turn redder and redder. She's in the wrong, and she knows it. But then again, so is he. He knows this, too. Yet the conversation has now moved past all logic as they stare each other down. 

“ _WHY DO YOU KEEP SAYING THAT_?!” is Rey’s response, “What the absolute _hell_ is right in front of my nose that I can’t see, hmm? Because all I see right now is a stubborn, self-centered jerk. Please, enlighten me, what is it that I can’t see, Ren?”

He hates the way his last name sounds coming from her in that specific tone of voice. He hates that they’re fighting. He hates that his unwillingness to open up and her unwillingness to just _let go_ has driven him here. He hates _everything_ because he’d much rather be making love to this woman than engaging in a shouting match, and so he finally gives in. 

The words fly out fast and furious and heated, his heart thundering in his ribs because if she wanted him to open up this is him bearing his soul. In his head, he shouts the words, much like he’s wanted to for a long time now. He's not sure how they truly come out, though. 

“That I like you! I like you, alright?” he says. “Why can’t you see that I like you?” 

This is not at all how he wanted all of this to go.


	35. Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is always darkest before dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge, huge, huge thanks to _everyone_ for the last chapter. You guys are the bomb. Go to the bottom for news and things.

_Why can’t you see that I like you?_

Rey had believed in fairytales as a child. She had believed in Love at First Sight, had _wanted_ it for herself. She’d dreamed of finding her Prince Charming, eyes wide open late into the night in the suffocating heat of her tiny room, daydreaming of the day her prince would come save her. Or anyone. She would have been happy with _anyone_ coming to save her, royal title or otherwise. It hadn’t even _needed_ to be a prince, in her head. Just… someone. She would have killed to have somebody express affection for her.

Except she doesn’t believe in fairytales anymore. Those notions had been swept away like so much dust in the wind as the years beat at her, ground her with intent to pulverize and left her empty, chuck taylors too small for her feet and a single beat up jansport bag carrying what few possessions she had in life by the time she made it out from the clutches of her orphaned life. Which is exactly why, as Kylo stares at her with a pained, frustrated expression on his face and waits for the words to sink into her head, Rey’s seeing red.

So much so, in fact, that her brain can’t distinguish between her alarm and her anger, both signals going off simultaneously and Rey unable to choose which to pay attention to. A second goes by, then another, the jumble inside her brain worsening with every one. Her brain goes blank.

“Rey?” Kylo says, no longer shouting. He’d half-shouted, half-grunted his explosive confession, then looked startled to have done so. That would have been amusing and endearing any other time. Rey takes a step forward, then a step back, her body’s autopilot shortcircuiting for a moment.

“Rey, say something.”

“I—“ she begins, then stops, teeth clicking loudly as she closes her mouth. Kylo runs his fingers through his hair, though he hardly seems to notice that he’s doing so. _Twitchy_ , she thinks, as he looks at his shoes.

“Not what I expected,” Kylo grumbles, looking up at her through his lashes, the heat of their fight diffussing on account of silence. He worries at his lip while Rey tries to hide her trembling hands behind her back, finger-wringing anxiously as she tries to decide what to do or say next, his sudden declaration having put a full stop on her thought processes and stunned her to silence.

“I like you, Rey,” he says, taking advantage of her immobility by stepping forward, a hair’s breath away from her. His body radiates heat, drawing her like a moth to a fire, but she stands her ground. “I don’t know how much more obvious I can be about it. I like you, okay?”

The first thing she notices is that his eyes are dark, dilated pupils taking her all in despite the worried set of his eyebrows and pouty, downturned mouth. Rey swallows hard, the uncomfortably tight grip around her heart and lungs squeezing the air out of her, an aching longing pulling at her. Yet her fear prevails, the fear that she’d been carrying with her ever since she’d admitted to herself that she’s attracted to him. That fear makes her limbs move, wanting to run. It’s one thing to let her heart indulge in the idea of liking this guy, it’s another to trust herself to allow him in fully, to expose herself completely again. She takes a step back, even though it physically hurts to do so when all she wants to do is close the distance.

Yeah, she’s got trust issues. And anger issues. And he’d somehow stumbled upon both at the same time.

“Then why can’t you trust me?” she asks, trying to say the words with conviction but they come out hushed anyway. She’d laid her life at his feet to read like an open book and the thought that he couldn’t possibly trust her hurts, and not just because it’s about his parents.

“I tell you I like you and you ask me why I can’t trust you,” Kylo says, frowning. “Why can’t you just accept what I give for what it is?”

He sounds bewildered, as if he’s never once dealt with such a situation. Rey knows the answer to that, though she’s unwilling to voice it: she can’t accept it because she can’t allow herself to give her everything all over again, not like before, not when it could mean another repeat of Finn’s _do you even know me_? _Do I even know myself_? Hell, she barely knows _herself,_ her walls around her heart hastily constructed out of nothing but matchsticks and glue lately, and Kylo Ren very much resembles an open flame.

As irrational as it is, his parents have nothing to do with it. She had thought… if only he’d open up then maybe. Maybe she could allow herself to be vulnerable, too. Maybe she could give in, open her heart and leave the gate open come what may.

With his words, another truth makes itself apparent to her, one that hovers over her fear of hurting and every other barrier she tries to put up, one that has nothing to do with Kylo himself as much as, well… _her_. Rey lets out a soft puff of air, internalizing that truth. She hasn’t changed at all. She’d just moved the goal posts. She’d trusted Kylo and expected him to do the same. Just like she’d loved Finn and Finn hadn’t loved her back the same way. That feeling of unworthiness settles deep in her bones.

Kylo, however, is expecting an answer. Rey licks her lips, biting back the tears that threaten to prickle at the corners of her eyes.

“I can’t,” she says. It’s the truth, after all. Just the abridged version. She’d already fucked up enough. Better to back down now, to not repeat what she’d gone through with Finn— sweet, caring Finn, who in the end couldn’t give her what she’d wanted. She won’t ask the same of Kylo Ren. She won’t be selfish a second time.

Her response ticks him off, though. He straightens again, taking a step back, and crosses his arms in front of himself. “Still hung up on Prince Charming, I see.”

Well, if Rey thought her anger had disappeared, she’d been wrong. She finally looks at him directly, something she’d been avoiding for a while now. “Would you _stop_ calling him Prince Charming?!” she says, grinding her molars and balling her fists at her side. Kylo couldn’t possibly know about her childhood dreams, after all, but it stings every time _anyway_. “He’s not, okay? You’re aware of that. I’m aware of that. _He’s_ aware of that. And I’m starting to take issue with you assuming that’s all I care about.“

Kylo scoffs, “Look who’s talking about assumptions!” he says, unable to let go of the notion that her heart’s just not in it. “It is all you care about! what could possibly be holding you back otherwise? You certainly had no trouble throwing all caution to the wind before! Why, Rey, when I’m willing to give you _anything_ , including my heart. You talk about _men_ being afraid of commitment and yet the second I show that I’m interested, that I want you, you try to bolt! What other reason could there be? Because I can’t find any other. And yet you assume that I don’t trust you because I’m unwilling to open up about this _one_ thing,” he shakes his head and Rey tries to process what he’s saying, but it’s hard to hear it over the sound of the blood pounding in her ears because what he wants is something she can’t give. The truth is that she’s so very close to giving in and yet… she’s scared. Scared to hurt. Scared of the unwavering way with which he makes her that offer. “You overstepped on this one, Rey!” he continues, flinging his hands out to accentuate his point. Then, as if he's realized what they've fallen back into, he grumbles, “Why are we discussing this again?”

Rey clears her throat, taking another step back, though this one is slow and hesitant. She looks up at him and attempts a half grimmace, unable to truly smile when her throat burns from trying to keep everything in. She fucked it up again. Asked for too much. _Again_.Rey looks away, over his shoulder. It’s a hard angle, him being so tall and all, but she manages to land on a spot on the ceiling. It’s so blindingly bright, that ceiling. They’d spent hours painting it, stretching to reach it and maneuvering carefully around it. Like now. They’ve hit another ceiling, a decievingly bright one, punctuated by the suffocating tension clogging up the air. She does the only thing she can do: she backs down first.

“We’re not,” she says. “We’re not discussing it. You’re right, I overstepped. A lot, actually. I’m sorry.”

The hard set to Kylo’s shoulder vanishes, immediately slumping in on himself with relief. “Thank you.”

Rey nods, then licks her lips and feels her heart split in two, breaking again in a way she hadn’t realized it could break for somebody she’d known for such a short period of time, but time has no bearing on emotion. It aches just as deeply.

“I should go.”

Kylo nods as Rey forces a smile and turns on her heel, walking slowly out of the kitchen and up the stairs, each leaden step hurting more than the last. Then she hears his steps following quickly behind just as she’s closing the door. She sits on the bed and stares around. It’s not the room they usually share, but it feels like a good idea now. Why does it always come to this, anyway? Her moving rooms? Her leaving things behind? Rey scoots back on the bed, pressing her back against the headboard and drawing up her knees to her chest. It’s a little chilly, but it could be worse. It’s not like the cold registers.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Rey?”

Rey rubs at her nose, turning her head to look at the door. She clears her throat and does her best to even out her voice.

“Yeah?”

There’s a soft, relieved exhale from outside the door. “Are you okay?”

She’s forced to clear her throat again, trying to make it stop constricting. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just wanted to be alone for a bit.”

There’s no answers, but there’s also no retreating steps. “You’re lying.”

She has to give it to him. He hasn’t opened the door and tried to barge in, unlike what she’d done with his privacy. Rey licks her lips, smiling wryly to herself. Even through a closed door he can tell. She tilts her head back against the wall and nods, but instead says, “I really am okay.”

Another heartbeat or two later she hears a small thump and the rough, long sound of fabric scratching against wood. In her mind’s eye, she can see him pressing his back against her door and sliding down. When she hears another muffled noise, that of a large weight settling on wooden floors, her suspicions are confirmed.

“Will you come to bed?” he asks, sounding both hopeful and tired. Rey closes her eyes for a moment and counts back from ten.

“Later,” she lies.

“Okay,” Kylo says. “And will you stay?”

Rey tilts her head. Maybe he hadn’t misunderstood, just hadn’t caught up to the meaning fast enough. Rey looks out the window. Her chest squeezes again at the hope with which he asks that question.

He’d been right in calling her a coward. Rey loops her fingers together in front of her, lacing them to keep her legs drawn, chin on her knees and a shard of ice in the pit of her stomach.

She can’t be selfish again.

She won’t be. He deserves better.

She’d asked too much and hoped for too much, and the coward in her can’t process the idea of giving him what he wants when she knows practically nothing about him. She may have been reckless with Finn, but she’d known Finn. She’d known him all her life and he’d been familiar, a well from which she could draw strength. Kylo is an ocean— endless, infinitely obscure, and all she can think of is that if she dares wade in the riptides might take her. She chews on her lower lip, staring ahead even though she can see little.

“Rey?” Kylo asks again. She bites down tasting a single droplet of blood. “Please stay.”

Yeah, Kylo Ren is no idiot.

They sit in silence like this for a good ten minutes, Kylo lost in his own thoughts and Rey lost in hers.

She hears shuffling again, this time with a grunt as Kylo gets up from his position against her door. She hears him walk away, and it hurts to hear it. She hears the next bedroom door open, the sound bouncing in the old building despite the well oiled hinges. Perhaps he’d gone to bed. No, there’s the sound again. The door closes this time, but there are more footsteps. They draw closer. There’s another soft thump. A forehead against the door? A hand on the wall?

Then she hears Kylo shuffling around and pushing something under the door. Rey turns to look at it. She can’t see. She takes out her phone and turns on the flashlight and angles it at the door, only to blink twice when a metallic glint flashes and tries to blind her. A small, rectangular piece of plastic. A credit card. Rey frowns and can barely make out the letters ‘REN’ on it.

Before she can ask him what the heck it’s for, Kylo stands up again and presses his head to the door. She can tell. His voice sounds deeper, closer.

“I never paid you,” he says with a dark chuckle. “I only just realized this. I never paid you for your help. Use it as you see fit.”

She feels like crying, because that single action feels like he’s saying good bye, like he'd rather let her go than the alternative, and she’s not sure whether to be happy or deeply sad. Actually, she does know. She’s both happy and deeply, terrifyingly, heart-breakingly sad.

A small voice tells her to open the door, to hug him and thank him and apologize, to tell him she would never pry again and that he’s a good man, and that she’s willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth if only he’ll love her. Another tells her she’s already done that before.

She hears him retreat.

Rey stares at his credit card, then turns off the light on her phone and curls up in bed once she hears the bedroom next door open and shut softly. She’s such an idiot. She knows she’s an idiot. She’s also brought this upon herself. She should have gone back home when she had the chance to. Rey feels the pointy heart of Maz’s ring digging into her skin. She tells herself it’s for the best, that she’d never promised to stay forever anyway. Rey had always seen herself leaving, though perhaps on better terms.

Why is she such a coward?

She sets her head on the pillow and closes her eyes, letting exhaustion wash over her. It tries to lull her, to pull her in with promises of rest, though she doubts she’ll find any, too busy running down her mental list of life-long screw ups, this one being the latest of them. She should have known better than to open herself up to it. Her heart tells her to _act_ , not think, but how can she do that? How can she trust a man with her heart when he won’t trust her with his? How can she hand over her heart when she knows nothing about him? How can she _demand_ that he does when he obviously owes her nothing, and who is she to get hurt over it to begin with? It’s not her place. Rey pinches her eyes shut even harder and hugs her pillow.

She’d try to sleep. Sleep first, worry later. Tomorrow she could figure out what to do about all this.

An hour later she hears footsteps again. She hears the same sliding of fabric on wood, the same settling of a weight on wooden floors, the same soft _thump_ that makes her think he let his head fall back against her door. She hears a soft exhale, every single sound ten times louder in a place this big and quiet. Rey blinks her eyes open, having managed exactly zero sleep.

“There was a boy,” Kylo’s voice carries. Rey frowns, confused. “Sad boy.”

She tilts her head, straining to hear. The same boy from his case? He’d begun his tale that way. What did that have to do with anything? It’s only when he continues that she realizes he’s talking about himself.

“He grew up surrounded by people and yet nobody paid attention,” he says, loud enough for her to hear, but the words are heavy and low. “His mother was a politician, you see? His father a racer,” he chuckles. The puzzle pieces start falling together immediately.

 _New york_. He’d grown up in New York.

 _Solo_.

“You’re Han Solo’s _son_?” she asks, disbelieving. Rey had watched one too many Nascar races as a child, Plutt’s obsession with fast cars slowly transferring to her against her better judgement. Whenever her foster father hadn’t been acting gross he’d allow her the one indulgence of sitting on the floor and watching the races with him. Of course she’d known who Han Solo was. There was only _one_ Solo. Specifically, one Solo married to a politician. Kylo snorts, this time without humor. He knows the same, too. It's not hard to put the pieces together once he disclosed his mother's occupation.

“I see you’re up to date on that. Perhaps you know about the drama, then,” he says.

She nibbles on her lip, leaning forward on the bed. “No, I don’t.” She’d never been allowed to read the newspapers.

A moment later, Kylo sighs. “Pity, it would have saved us both time.” Then he shifts, the boards creaking under him. “It was all over the newspapers, especially with my mother’s job being what it was— young boy, son of Leia Organa, US Senator, and _Han Solo_ the rising star. Always in trouble, always up to no good.”

Kylo falls silent and Rey buries herself back in on the pillows. “You don’t have to tell me. I know I did wrong, Kylo, it’s your story and—“

“And I haven’t told anyone outside of Luke and Maz in sixteen years,” he finishes for her, his voice distorting as it passes through the walls, through cracks in the wooden doors. “And I can’t tell you why I’ve been so hesitant to, either. It’s old history, after all. They shipped me off to boarding school when I was young, not knowing what to do with their miscreant of a child, not knowing all they had to do was _look at me_ , and see me. But they were too deep in their own marital issues, more married to their jobs than each other, and so had little room for anything else.”

Her heart hurts and Rey sits up, she walks towards the door and presses up against it, sitting where she thinks he is and resting her back against the door too. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says, “that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that there was a boy. A sad boy. One who didn’t know how to deal with bulliest despite being one himself, who didn’t know when to say no when a teacher took advantage of that, of him, and used his track record to keep him silent. Who would believe a bad boy, after all?”

Oh no.

“Did they—“

“She was clever, that one. I finally managed to tell my parents a year later, and you know what happened? They were enraged. Oh yes, they were enraged. For about five minutes. Then the conversation became about _them_. _Again_. What would people say? How would it affect my mother’s career with upcoming reelection? How could she attempt to govern when she couldn’t even keep her wayward child under control? ” he scoffs, then laughs. “Yeah, that’s why I hold a grudge. It was never about me. They never truly _saw_ me. So I left. I broke into my savings, bought a plane ticket and showed up at Luke’s door. And that’s the short of it. The longer, more detailed version— I’ve forgotten it, to be honest. It’s been a long time since I revisited it.”

She can see why.

And now she hurts, and not for _her_ , but for him. For all the things she said and did and for how she pried and if she could only have the earth open up and swallow her, she would. And it only confirms her previous thoughts, Rey hasn’t changed _at all_.

“I’m sorry.” She says, because it’s all she can say.

On the other side, Kylo shifts.

“I didn’t tell you so you could feel sorry for me, Rey,” he says. Rey’s eyes sting, the unshed tears finally falling quietly. She’s such a selfish, horrible person. And how could she not feel for him? So much makes sense now. His job, his mannerisms around others — specially women — his stubborn desire for her to stay, to not go back to Plutt. His need to protect her, over and over, even though she’s now sure she must have been a constant reminder of his past because of her own, and she’d done nothing more than be ungrateful and awful to him.

“I’m still sorry,” she manages to reply, and she’s very proud that her voice only trembles slightly.

“Alright,” he says. Then he lets out a very, very loud sigh. “Now, will you please come to bed?”

Rey gets up, having made up her mind, and opens the door once she hears him shift away from it. He looks up at her from where he’s crouching and gives her a tiny smile, one she can barely see in the dim moonlight. Rey picks up his credit card from the floor, clutching onto it, then gives him a weak smile. She allows him to lead and follows him into bed, and waits for him to fall asleep, listening for those deep lungfuls of air, long and drawn out, his massive arm thrown over her waist. He seeks her out even in his sleep and it aches all the more. She hugs him close, listening.

She’d gotten what she wanted, she thinks. He’d opened up. She’d also gotten what she needed; a cold slap of reality to the face, courtesy of Life.

She waits for hours, enough hours that the sky outside starts getting lighter. Rey gets up and out of bed slowly then pads downstairs to the kitchen, feeling for all the world like a thief in the night as she opens up a drawer and pulls out a pub flyer and turns it around. She finds a pen shoved to the very back of the drawer and, with the flashlight of her phone facing the ceiling so she can write, Rey writes Kylo’s name down. When she’s done, she folds it up neatly, as though the straight edges and even tri-fold could make up for the contents, hoping that he’ll forgive her. She pads upstairs and with a dying silent sob threatening to burst out of her, Rey yanks Maz’s ring off her finger. She first sets the letter down, then the card, then the ring on top.

He must have been tired, because he doesn’t even twitch, so she goes about as quietly as she can and grabs her travel bag, making sure there’s nothing in it but the clothes she’d purchased for herself back in New York, thankful that she’d gone to bed in her clothes the previous night just as Kylo had. Rey looks at him, her face falling, and she memorizes the way those messy curls fall over his face, over his too-big ears. She memorizes the length of his lashes and the curve of his lips, and takes a second to trace the tiny moles on his cheek, then she leaves the room and out the back door, through the pub floor and the kitchen, and how fortunate yet sad it is that she’s already memorized exactly where to step so the floors don’t creak.

Once outside she finally puts on her old oxford shoes, weather and road worn and _hers_ , then pulls her phone out of her pocket and stares at it. She’s back at square one, but at least this time she’s doing the right thing. He deserves better than somebody who couldn’t see what’s right in front of her nose, as he put it.

Rey nibbles on her lip, looking at the list of phone numbers there. If she’s lucky, she might be able to do this the easy way. If she’s unlucky, she’d have a long-ass way to hitchhike on her own. There’s a number there she plans on dialing later, but that one would have to wait. Rey looks back at the pub, holding her breath and trying to memorize its facade, wishing her memory were as permanent as the photographs she takes for a living.

She’s doing the right thing. It would hurt them both, but he’d eventually get over it and move on with life, and he’d be better off for it. Rey steps out of onto the garden, walks around the pub and out the front yard, trying her best not to make a sound as she starts walking towards Maz’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEWS! We have news. 
> 
> A few things of note:
> 
> 1\. It has been brought to my attention that AO3 is being a jerk and not sending people notifications of updates. There are over 500 people subscribed to this story and I nearly died inside at the idea that a huge chunk of you are not being notified. SO, there are two solutions: one is to subscribe to me as an author (go to my profile), but note that if you do so you'll get notification for ALL my stories, not just this one. 
> 
>  
> 
> 2\. Please whitelist the AO3 email / make it a contact in your email provider. Supposedly AO3 is aware of this issue but they can't find what's wrong on their end, so this is their suggestion to avoid the emails are filtered out or sent to spam.


	36. Whiskey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for all the love last chapter <3 So much water for your local author-plant.
> 
> I am posting this early (holy shit very early. Like 3 days after last update early) rather than posting tomorrow, since I plan on taking the weekend off. Sleep deprivation and work have done a number on me, so it's time to chill and not worry about keeping a schedule. ;p Which, I guess, you benefit from this? 
> 
> Enjoy.

She’s not there.

Kylo stares at the empty spot in bed, and as his eyes rise towards something glinting on the nightside table he knows before his eyes focus that she’s not _there_ , and not just physically in another room; downstairs, in the yard, in the kitchen, or even within five miles. She’s gone.

Kylo sits up and stares at the ring atop his credit card, both of them glinting in the early morning sun and mocking the way his stomach plummets at the sight that greets him. His first thought is _where_? The second is _why?_

He doesn’t need to know the first and he dreads knowing the second, but he thinks he might be getting an answer soon. There’s a piece of hilariously neon green printer paper neatly folded underneath Maz’s ring and his card, folded _just so_. He reaches forward with trembling fingers as he sits up in bed, clothes wrinkled and sheet marks on his face, and tugs it from where it rests. He nearly opens it up to scan the contents, then stops, feeling like an idiot for the way his fingers twitch and shudder on the paper, shaking it like a leaf in the wind.

Does he want to know what’s in it? Yes, he does. Yet, she’s left, Maz’s ring nowhere near her finger being the only proof he needs that she’d walked out on him.

Instead he sets it aside.

He gets up and opens the closet. Her clothes are there. Not her bag, though, but her clothes are. At least the clothes _he’d_ bought her. That also hurts. He grabs his own clothes out of the closet, yanking them off their hangers harder than necessary and sending a few flying. He needs a shower and to brush his teeth and put himself together, even if inside he’s slowly cracking like so much dry clay. He walks to the bathroom. Her toiletries are in there. That confuses him.

Kylo tilts his head at her toothbrush, at her bottle of shampoo. He opens it, looking at it as the smell wafts up. The smell of her shampoo. The floral smell that he knows he will undoubtedly recognize across the ages from now on, no matter where he stands. It’s been etched into his memory, that one association. He snaps the bottle closed and puts it back reluctantly, then hops in the shower and takes his sweet time. He won’t bother walking around the perimeter. He won’t bother calling out her name.

She’s gone.

She’d walked out on him.

He’d bared himself open for her and she’d just… left. She’d won the battle then ran away, leaving him behind on his back. He scoffs, not knowing exactly how to feel yet, too shell-shocked to do anything but wash his hair and avoid thinking about the fact that she’s not there.

He finishes his bath, has breakfast, only one plate set out instead of two. He tries his best not to stare at _anything_ , because now everything in this stupid Pub that he’d come to run, that he’d _used_ to run from his problems, has become the epitome of his problems personified. He can only see Rey, in the paint color of the walls she’d chosen and the high shine of the tiles she’d labored to clean, in the large coffee mugs they’d picked together because she’s a coffee addict, and every other stupid little thing they’d done together from changing out the lightbulbs to fixing up the stupid tap in the kitchen sink.

Two hours later when it becomes obvious that he’s not going to be able to run away from this one or throw money at it to solve his problems like he’s done with everything in his life, he closes the place, slamming the door before locking it – a habit now — and then taking the first walk he’s actually taken by himself in two months.

It feels surreal.

She left.

Just like that.

And he’s still shell-shocked, and confused, and he’s sure his anger is about to start bubbling _any second now_ right along with his awful abandonment issues. Her letter’s now folded in his jean pocket, right next to Maz’s ring. Right where it belongs, apparently. It had spent more time in his pockets than it had on her finger, it feels like. But he ignores both the letter and the ring for now, choosing instead to take the longest walk of his life as he loops around the town twice. Nobody bothers him, probably noticing the look of discontent he’s wearing like a shield, quickly stepping out of his way whenever they come too close. He instead chooses to look at all the greenery and remembers Rey commenting on it, and hates himself for noticing it now.

But he won’t give in, obstinate in his intentions not to read the stupid letter until he’s had time to absorb her sudden disappearance. He also now needs to go give Maz her ring. Funny, he thinks. He _had_ warned Maz that the ring would be returned. How awful that he’s now being proven right.

She left.

 _She never promised to stay_.

She left.

_You knew she wouldn’t, why are you falling apart now?_

She… just… left.

_Then why did you allow yourself to hand over your heart when you knew there was a possibility she would?_

He has no answers to any of those words, so he instead does one more loop around the town, dread curling in his stomach at the thought of having to go back to the pub.

Well, what had he expected, really? For this girl to decide that she would give it all up for him of all people? Highly fucking unlikely.

He’d been an idiot, is what he’d been, to hope that for once something would go right in his life. He shoves his hands into his pockets, ignoring the ring and the letter, and instead of going back into the pub he gets in his Camaro and drives. Most of it is aimless driving, eventually ending up at the castle ruins. That, too, now has Rey written all over it, but it’s his hiding spot, so he walks up the steps and sits on the edge of the collapsed wall, staring out at the view without seeing it and mostly just slowly feeling angry with himself. He replays their fight, over, and over, and _over_ , because he’s a masochist and likes to make himself hurt. He tries to look for clues, for signs, for anything he could have said or done that would have driven her _that_ far.

Had it been his constant nagging about Finn? Because yes, he might have gone too far, what with the name calling and the accusations, yet he’d been furious and full of resentment that _despite it all_ she’d pick Finn over him every time. Not that he had a claim to her life. Finn had been in it for years. Kylo had been in it for months.

Had it been the accusation about commitment? But _she’d_ been the one to throw that one out first. And it was no less true no matter how scathingly the words had come out. Her sudden disappearance in the morning had proved it.

There it is, the anger. It’s now churning in his stomach, red hot and boiling, threatening to get out. He inhales sharply, trying his best to keep his shit together because he’s by himself here and there’s nothing to take it out on. Nothing but to chuck his phone, which he may just as well do—

His phone.

He scrambles to pick it out of his pocket, fingers once again trembling as he turns it on. He debates for a moment, looking at the name _Duckling_ and feeling an awful, foreign pang of a different sort of hurt, flashes of memories skittering past then scattering as he stares at those eight letters. His duckling. His annoying, stubborn, pigheaded, beautiful, vulnerable duckling. What had he done to drive her away?

He sets his phone on his lap, staring back out towards the lake.

Should he?

He _almost_ dials, almost. His heart wants him to dial, to hear the ring and hold his breath and wait for her voice to pick up and call him by his name. He wants…

God, he wants so many things.

Instead he turns off the screen and pockets his phone again.

No, she’d walked out. If she wanted to talk, _she_ would have to be the one to call. He’s heartbroken and petty and the very air around him feels wrong, it reeks of emptiness and loneliness and he’s no longer used to either of those things, but damn it she’d be the one to call first.

Kylo gets up once the sun’s gone over its peak, getting back in the car and, one hand on the shift and the other on the wheel, he makes a split decision. Kylo heads for the harbor. He shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, but he’s nothing if not self destructive at his lowest. So he buys a bottle of the strongest alcohol he can buy and drives back, then sits under the willow tree in his back yard and stares at the pub.

In hindsight, having run away from LA had been a really bad idea. Everything he’s done has been a bad idea, really, including drinking on an empty stomach now. He takes another swig of whiskey, deciding that drinking something that tastes more like rubbing alcohol than anything else is a perfect way to burn his insides. He’s not even sure why he’s drinking, or why it hurts so much — not the burn, this time. The rejection hurts, the feeling that he did something wrong hurts, the knowledge that the one beam of sunlight in his life walked out _hurts_. He looks at the bottle. This stuff tastes like corrosive piss and he should be drunk by now but he’s not even close yet. He sighs.

Then he spots a set of small feet, accompanied by four slow, brown paws that take their sweet little time across his perfectly manicured lawn. Kylo looks up and his eyesight spins a little. Maybe the alcohol _had_ been working.

“I thought I’d find you here,” she says, coming to stand in front of him. Chewie immediately flops at his feet, attempting a sad roll over that he only half manages. Kylo half-heartedly rubs his stomach without looking at his owner, choosing instead to take another swig of his drink.

“Of course you did,” he says. “Question is why are you here, Maz?”

Ooops. He hadn’t meant to sound like such an asshole. Maz just sighs, unfazed. Where he’d be able to scare off anyone else this one woman would just basically weather any storm, including the one named Kylo Ren, the one that spun and destroyed and burned his bridges.

“Put that down,” she chides him, grabbing at his bottle. He almost attempts to cling onto it but knows better than to fight Maz. She comes to sit by his side instead, capping the bottle and setting it far away from him. “Do you think drinking your problems away is going to work? The last time you tried to outrun your problems you ended up here. Where do you plan on ending next? The woods?”

Kylo snorts, but then laughs, unable to stop himself. Maz shakes her head, an indulgent smile on her thin-lipped face as she pats his knee.

“She’s gone.” He explains, then digs into his pocket, pulling out her ring with jerky fingers along with the letter. He sets the letter aside, then offers Maz her ring. Maz looks at it, then at him, before closing his fingers around it with her own.

“Keep it, kid,” she says. “I mean what I said. Now, why did she leave?”

Kylo turns to her, lower lip trembling like a child before he manages to catch it. He would not cry. He’s not a child. Instead he lets out a long suffering grunt and runs anxious fingers through his hair, mussing it up until it looks unkept.

“Hell if I know.”

“Is that so?” she says, pointing to the slip of neon green paper to his right. “And what’s that?”

“A letter.”

“From?”

“Who do you think, Maz?” he clips, before catching himself. Maz should not be the recipient of his ire, or his sulking. He once again sighs. “She left it underneath my credit card.”

“Your credit card?” Maz asks, cocking an eyebrow. Kylo stops, thinking back. It sounds bizarre when trying to explain why he’d given her the card in the middle of a fight, yet explain he does. Throwing money at his issues as always. After a while, Maz hums.

“So she left,” Maz says, “Do you know where?”

Kylo looks at his boots, hangs his head between his knees and breathes in deeply. “No.”

No, he doesn’t know. He hasn’t _wanted_ to know, because if he knows he might just follow there and demand answers. Answers he doesn’t need to demand, because she’d probably so very helpfully included them on a stupid piece of printer paper so she wouldn’t have to see his face ever again, and _God_ , he’s a fucking loser, pining over a twenty three year old as if he were just as old instead of the grown man he is.

Maz _tsks_.

“Well!” she announces loudly. Loud enough to make him wince. “I do.”

This time his head snaps up. “Excuse me?”

“Got your attention, didn’t I?” she says, a shrewd look on her face. “I know where she went.”

Why would Maz—

“What did you do?” he asks, immediately going on the defensive. Maz had never been known for anything other than very subtle meddling and careful maneuvering. She makes a face at him, scrunching her nose before she swats him on the face. It’s a pat, really. Not even a touch, but he knows it for what it is. A tap on the wrist for being impudent.

“Brat,” she chides, “if you must know, what I did was help you.”

 _What_?

“What?”

Maz rolls her eyes then starts rubbing her arm, looking at the pub. Her eyes run over the paving stones, over the now brightly painted door, over the clear, clean windows and neatly trimmed hedges. She smiles wistfully for a moment before looking at him.

“You’ve built something so beautiful together, so why did you fight?”

Always straight to the point, this one. “How do you know we fought?”

Maz snorts. “Rey told me. Now answer the question.”

His eyes drop, feeling immediately ashamed at his willingness to back himself into a corner. He looks at the letter sitting next to him, rustling slightly in the wind, and despite his unwillingness to read it he grabs it to keep it from flying away.

“It was about my parents,” he responds, feeling as though it physically hurts him to talk about it. Maz lets out another one of those quizzical humming sounds of hers.

“Close but no cigar,” she says, making Kylo feel uneasy at the fact that Maz always seems to hit so close to the truth, _his_ truth. He clears his throat, playing with the edge of the letter and wishing _desperately_ that she would hand him back his damn bottle of whiskey and leave him to wallow in peace. “Come on, Ben, you’re a smart man.”

“My name’s not Ben.”

“If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck,” Maz says, which makes him look up, and maybe he’s going insane because he suddenly finds that so very hilarious.

“Duck,” he says, chuckling with the beginnings of drunken tears in his eyes. How obnoxious. “Ducks and ducklings and _all the fucking birds_.”

Maz just watches him, waiting for him to calm down, and only when he finally runs out of jaded laughter a minute later does she continue her particular brand of emotional probing. “So? What was it?”

“Trust,” Kylo answers finally, feeling like an idiot. Why had it been so hard? Maz nods. “She wanted me to trust her.”

“And why do you think she wanted that so badly?” Maz asks, guiding him through this as if he were a child, despite the fact that if he tried hard enough he could reason out why. Partly, he hasn’t wanted to, if only because he’s afraid of what he might find there. He licks his lips, tasting the alcohol on it, bitter and grosser than ever, but it centers him.

He shrugs.

“Did you ever stop demanding she hand over her broken heart to you long enough to _ask_ her why she wanted to know so badly? Why she wanted to know about your parents so much?” Maz asks. That makes him look up.

“I—“ he starts, then halts, thinking back. Sure, she wanted him to trust her with the knowledge of his parents. That had been the whole fucking fight, the whole week of distance and bickering and the general anxiety he’d kept bottled in his chest had all been because she had wanted him to open up and…

He realizes he hadn’t asked.

Sure, he’d asked. Then he’d flung insults her way, tried to deflect her questions, accused her of wanting to _fix him_ and play house with his parents, but he hadn’t _really_ asked. He hadn’t asked because he hadn’t wanted the answer. He looks at Maz. Maz smiles.

“Read the letter,” she says, getting up and dusting her knees. Then she picks up the bottle of whiskey, tucking it under her arm and making it painfully clear that she has no plans to give it back so he can drown in it.

“How do you know all this?” he asks.

Maz’s smile grows. “I was the one who gave her a ride out of town.”

“You what—“ before he can finish that sentence Maz cuts him off by whistling for Chewie to get up, making a big fuzz over her dog and generally ignoring him even as he shouts for her to come right back this instant and tell him why she would _possibly do that, and hadn’t she been the one who said she’d helped him_? What kind of backward help was _that_?!

He stares at the letter in his hands, playing with the now worn, wrinkled edges.

He opens it up, squinting at her bubbly writing and trying to decipher what she’s written. It’s shaky, and there are a couple of spots where the ink is feathered around haloed circles. Tears. She’d been crying while writing this. His heart squeezes upon realization, conditioned now to feel pain for her even though he really _shouldn’t_.

 

_KYLO,_

~~ _I am so sorry._ ~~ _By the time you read this I will probably not be there. I am sorry for that. I am so sorry. For not having the courage to say goodbye to your face. For more than that, really. I am sorry for_ ~~ _evrything_ ~~ _everything. I wanted to let you know why I chose to leave, though, and I hope that even though you have no reason to believe me, that you can find it in you to forgive me._

 ~~ _I will try to explain as best_ ~~ _You were right, I’m a coward and an idiot, and so I think doing this is the only way I can make up for everything. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been there for me, supported me, taken care of me, and been everything I had hoped for in Finn but never got, and yet… I hurt you. I see that now. I hurt you and I was careless, chasing after something I thought would make me happy if only I chased it hard enough._

This is where the tear smudges intensify, and Kylo traces the letters, his lips turning down even further.

_I wanted to be happy, to be wanted, and you gave me that but all I did was take without knowing. And I hurt you in the process. I demanded that you give more than you were willing to because I was too afraid to just give in like y you wanted me to._

He stares at the skipped ‘y,’ wondering if her vision blurred and she missed it. Kylo thumbs it, reading on. Stupid, stupid girl. How could she think running from him would fix any of it?

_I never stopped to consider everything because I was too wrapped up in my own hurt, and that makes me awful. And the truth of it all is that I didn’t want to turn you into another Finn, moving my hopes onto you and hoping that you would reciprocate them. I let my fear blind me. It was selfish of me, and I am sorry. I am so, so sorry that I made you share something you didn’t want to share. I didn’t want to fix you. You’re perfect as you are, flaws and all. And that terrifies me. Because nobody has cared this much. Not like this. Not even Finn. He cares, but not…I realize now that his care for me is not what I imagined it to be. I painted a version of him in my head that wasn’t real, and I’m afraid of doing the same to you. And I need to fix my problems first._

Here his heart starts beating faster, because the next few words after that trainwreck of spilled insecurities are not what he’s expecting, but the tears she must have shed intensify, and it’s _almost_ hard to read what she’s written, the toner on the back starting to bleed through. Still, it’s clear enough.

_The truth is I like you, but I don’t know how to like somebody openly, not without letting my baggage interfere. I was so close, so close to giving you what you wanted, because I think being with you might have been the closest I’ve ever gotten to knowing true love, and I felt myself falling. I didn’t pull away because I was mad at you for keeping your secrets. I withdrew because I was scared. Scared that I’d mess this up. This beautiful, wonderful thing you had started to show me, so I did what I always do. I closed myself up and tried to stop it before it hurt me, and I’m s-so, so, so sorrry._

She wrote the word love. _She_ wrote the word love. Not him. For once it had not been him. And sure, a letter’s not the same as hearing it, but his breathing is turning shallow and he scans that line over and over again. She’s missing letters and putting in unnecessary ones and he can only imagine her bending over this piece of paper, trying not to cry over it while smudging her lashes together and trying to pour her heart out. And it hurts. The next words make his heart stop completely.

_But I can’t make you wait for me to fix my mistakes, and you can’t fix them for me, and it would be unfair to you. So I’m leaving. I’m sorry. You deserve better._

His poor duckling, his poor, aching duckling. He can see himself in her mess of jumbled apologies as he was at sixteen. The permanent screw up with too many scars, and he _aches_. Why couldn’t she see that he just wanted to _help?_

_I wish you luck, and love. And I hope you find somebody someday who is worth receiving all you have to give. I— I love you. So I think the best thing I can do now is let you go._

Kylo rereads that sentence over and over. Over, and over. And over.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Her handwriting’s shakier there than elsewhere, as though she’d struggled with herself to define what her feelings were. He stares at those words. He can imagine it so clearly in her mind. Rey, pen in hand, suddenly realizing what she feels. Kylo looks up, towards where Maz was, but she’s long gone now. As a matter of fact, the sun’s already setting, and the buzz is fading off, his metabolism and the current throbbing of his heart burning through that alcohol faster than if he had run it off. Kylo gets up on his feet, albeit a little wobbly, and sprints out of the yard and across the road, down and down until he barrels into Maz’s. He finds her rocking in her chair, Chewie at her feet, a giant mug of steaming tea cradled between her ancient hands and a knowing, patient smile on her face.

She’d been expecting him.

“Where?” he pants, out of breath and still entirely too intoxicated. Maz nods to herself, the all-knowing woman.

“I think we need to have a chat first, and force a few mugs of coffee into you so we can wear off that case of horrible judgment you drank into your veins before I tell you.” She says and Kylo very nearly snarls at her in frustration, but this is Maz. There’s no budging when she’s made up her mind.

So instead he takes the steps two at a time and looks down at her as she lifts herself painfully slow up from her chair and makes a show of setting down her blanket off her lap and onto the chair, then she beckons him to follow inside with a crooked finger and sets about making him coffee so bitter and black it feels like drinking tar.

Two large mugs of this later his head’s clearing a little, and his knee’s bouncing impatiently.

“Did you find what you needed in the letter?” she asks, sitting across from him. He glares, but his hand immediately falls over his pocket, where Maz’s ring and Rey’s letter sit, the piece of paper now _really_ abused from his constant manhandling and accidental squeezing as he’d run to Maz’s.

He nods.

“The best thing one can do for something they love is to set it free,” Maz says, eyes far away. She looks at a picture of her husband then back at Kylo. “Don’t you agree?”

No.

No he doesn’t fucking agree. He doesn’t want to set Rey free, he wants to have her _home_. He wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her that he could be there to help her work out all of those issues if only she’d _let_ him. That he has a million issues of his own, and that she’d been the only one to ever see through those and see _him, and still_ give him a chance to be a good person after all that, and God if _he_ doesn’t need that in his life.

“That doesn’t help me,” he says, lips thin and hard as he glares at his coffee.

“Oh, but I think it does,” Maz muses, then smiles. “After all, you’ve already done the hard part. You let her go.”

He wants to cry. He doesn’t _want_ to let her go. He tells Maz as much.

“What _do_ you want then?” she asks. Kylo blinks, looking up.

“I—“ he starts. “I want…”

“Yes?”

“I want her. All of her. Problems and all. I want her home. I want to _be_ a home for her.”

Maz smiles. “Funny you say that. She mentioned a similar thing, just didn’t think she could ever be that person; her self-esteem’s so low below rock bottom you’d have to dig a mile to find it. Could barely admit to her feelings, that one.”

He’s not surprised. He’d had to chip at her stone walls to even be allowed a glimpse inside. He’s surprised Maz had managed to wedge herself through as well. Though perhaps he can see it, Maz being that maternal godsend she’d always been. She had certainly been for that _for him_ in the past.

“So what? I let her go?” he asks, not without an edge of bitterness. “Watch her disappear where I can never find her?”

God but he sounds whiny now. Maz takes on that look that screams _I told you so and I win_ , eyes bright and a mischievous tilt to her lips.

“Now would be a good time to thank me, _Ben Solo_ ,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him on his name. Fine, fine he’d be Ben if he got an answer out of her. He’d be fucking _anyone_ if it got him closer to Rey.

“Thank you, Maz,” he says, trying to sound like he expects nothing though inside he’s itching.

“Look at you, all grown up,” Maz pats his hand and he suppresses his need to roll his eyes. “As it is, she came to say her goodbyes this morning. Poor kid just wanted to hitchhike her way out of here somehow after that and go try to sort herself out for a while, whatever that means. I convinced her to seek help instead. And where do you think that would be?”

Kylo frowns, taking it in. So she wanted to just… disappear? He doesn’t doubt she’d be able to. She could probably work her way through the country until she had enough to go back home, her Visa still had another month left before she’d have to apply for something more permanent. And go figure herself out? What the hell? Kylo focuses in on the last few words.

Seek help instead.

Where, then, if not with Maz? If not with _him_?

The answer is easy enough, though. Who else is around? He pulls out his phone and immediately pulls up a browser, logging into his bank account and checking the log of transactions. Maybe she’d used his card. Maybe she bought a plane ticket there that he could track. He imagined that’s what she’d do when he offered it to her, buy a plane ticket home and leave him behind forever. Instead now he looks for a transaction that could point him to a different place.

He sees nothing.

Stubborn, _stubborn_ girl! Of course she wouldn’t. He grunts, shoving his phone back in his pocket, but he already knows the answer.

 _“Portugal_?” he asks. Maz smiles wider. He thinks back to her letter, a wave of anxious jealousy and resentment drowning him.

“Portugal. Something about confronting her fears and finding closure. She called me earlier to let me know she’s alright,” Maz informs him. “She’ll be there tomorrow.”

Kylo’s torn between gaping and screaming. “How is she even managing to get there?” she certainly hadn’t accepted his help. At the look of utter confusion on his face, Maz cackles.

“You don’t give that kid enough credit, she’s crafty as they come. There may or may not have been a stop at a Louis Boo-whatever store. Let’s just say she exchanged her fancy bag for a plastic garbage one.”

She’d sold her _bag?!_

Of course. It makes sense. And him learning all of this from Maz is not surreal at all. Not at _all_. Kylo nods and sits up. He’s not even sure where she is, but now the itch to follow has ingrained itself in his head if only so he can get _answers_.

Why? Why couldn’t she trust _him?_ Why couldn’t she say those words to his face? Why not just let _him_ decide if she had too much baggage for him to handle? Why. Why. Why.

He gets up to leave, setting the now drained cup of coffee down, when Maz grabs him by the arm.

“One more thing,” she says, standing up and pulling him down, forcing him to stoop. “I’m too damn short for this, boy, lean in.”

When he does, she kisses his cheek. “She told me to give you that, but there’s no way in Hell’s bells I’m kissing you on the mouth. If you see her, don’t tell her I told you.”

That makes him stop for a moment. He hesitates, the sudden urge to bolt and get in the car dampened by doubt.

“ _Should_ I see her?” he asks, more to himself than anything, but Maz pats his bicep.

“I can’t make that decision for you.”

Kylo stares at her.

“Do you love her?” Maz asks.

“Yes.” There is no hesitation there, not even for a millisecond. He’d woken up to a world of hurt and yet that answer had come out of his lips so quickly he’s almost startled.

“Good. Loving somebody is good. More than, really.” She says. She takes on a tone he’s come to know, so Kylo _listens._ He feels like he’s about to be told something very important, so even though he’s often quick to dismiss Maz’s words as simple quirks, his ears perk up and he looks straight at her. “But Ben, it’s not just love that carries you through the rough patches, but compromise. Understanding. Empathy.“

He blinks. Why does he get the feeling that she’s said these words with practiced ease before?Maz gets up to collect the array of coffee mugs sitting on the table. “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, child?”

“What if she doesn’t return?” he asks, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice, finally understanding what Maz said by letting her go.

“Oh, she’ll return,” Maz says.

“How do you know?”

“Call it an old woman’s intuition,” is all he gets for an answer. Then, after a moment, Maz grins. “What that child wants more than anything in this world is for somebody to love her as much as she’s capable of loving. I think she may have finally met her match.”

And with that, Maz walks her armful of mugs towards the kitchen and leaves him standing like an idiot behind. Kylo stares after her, then looks around the room, feeling a little dumb to be standing there. He grabs his jacket and throws it on, then leaves through the front door after giving Chewie a quick scratch behind the ears.

Forty-eight hours. He’d give her forty-eight hours. And if she doesn’t show up by then, then…

He debates the pros and cons with himself. He could let her go permanently, accept it as his due, and live to regret that day because he allowed himself to let her slip away without clearing away their misunderstandings. Or he could follow and brace himself for whatever came after.

He sleeps on it that night, then spends the rest of the next day with ants crawling under his skin, unable to fully concentrate on anything. As the hours close on his forty-eight hour window, Kylo throws all caution to the wind. He’d chase. It’s not like he hadn’t done so before.

He grabs his duffelbag and throws a few changes of clothes in it, pockets his phone and wallet, and after having made calls and pulled strings to try and find out where she could have gone, he runs down a mental checklist and tries to keep his anxiety at bay.

He opens the front door and walks out backward, keeping an eye on the pub’s floor for any last things he may have forgotten, wondering if he’s about to make a very big mistake when he hears something behind him.

It’s a soft bell-like voice, one he’s come to know _so well_. It sounds tired and broken, and it’s calling his name. His heart clenches.

“Kylo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to those who wanted Kylo to give chase first. ;O; there are REASONS.
> 
> EDIT: *SOB* I AM SO SORRY! I know I keep saying this but, these POV switches are hard and abrupt when the pacing is as tight as it is for the remaining chapters (what happens next is basically within 48 hours and one scene, so... yes...sorry. :( ). It is not intended to be a cliffhanger. SORRY.


	37. Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's last 48 hours have been a whirlwind...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter before the big finale! And thus, a ... slower chapter? sort of? That last beat of silence before the symphony picks up speed. Next chapter's the end of this story, with Chapter 39 being an epilogue, so thank you for your patience with the pacing. And thank you for all of your support and love. It means the world to me.

**BACK**

 

Rey’s eyes follow the wide  steps leading up to Maz’s front door only to find her already sitting on her porch. She’s under a giant, fluffy lap blanket with Chewie at her feet, taking in the early morning air and staring decidedly back at her. Rey dampens her lips,  all moisture having escaped her mouth only to be replaced with a certain feeling of dread, but she has to do this.  She’d told herself as much with every step she took away from the pub.  Maz had been the only person in her life to ever attempt to  fill the void a lack of a mother left in her, and she would miss this woman dearly. It felt like giving up a piece of her heart. Maz sips from her mug and wait s for her with a patience that stretches over centuries.

Rey clears her throat softly, the sound only audible to her own ears, and finally swings the iron gate open. It whines loudly in the silent morning air like a creature reluctant to wake, damp with morning dew and loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. Or maybe it’s Rey’s imagination. Every small sound, from the swinging gate to the chirp of a bird, makes her feel as though it were trying to wake up the neighborhood, to alert _somebody_ that she’s skulking around and trying to slip away unnoticed. She cringes and lets the gate fall closed slowly behind her. It’s not like it matters now. Only two people would truly care. One’s fast asleep in his bed and the other is staring right at her as she steps forward. 

“I must admit I didn’t expect to see you so early,” Maz greets. Chewie no longer needs to be prompted to say hello. His tail starts thumping slowly upon hearing Rey’s voice, another loud noise to add to the list. Rey leans over  with a soft held sigh, giving him scratches behind the ear and the pain already starts to set when she thinks she probably won’t see him again. 

“Were you expecting someone?” she asks. 

“Nah. Been up for a while. Some damn kids wouldn’t let me sleep with all their screaming.” Maz yawns behind a wrinkled hand, though her sharp eyes give away the lie. Rey’s cheeks  suffuse with red. She doesn’t need to take a wild guess to know who the _kids_ were. 

“Sorry,” Rey mutters, then looks back down at Chewie. “I came by to say good bye.”

“Leaving so soon?” Maz asks. “That’s a pity. I rather liked you.”

Oh God, but that hurts, and wow if it isn’t straightforward.  Then again, she expects nothing else from Maz. Rey’s shoulders slump with the leaden weight of  those words. She’d found all this and now she’s running from it. 

_It’s for the best. It’s for the best. He deserves better._

Rey pastes on an unconvincing smile on her face and shrugs delicately, finally working up the courage to look up once more. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

Maz tilts her head, drumming her nails on the edge of her mug as she studies Rey for a moment, then she lets out a soft snort. “Overstayed it or refuse to make it permanent?”

Perhaps coming to see Maz had been a bad idea, Maz with her insight and her usual way of delivering the hardest of truths like a crack of lightning. Maz sighs, patting the empty rocking chair next to her own **.** She’d prepared. Perhaps Maz is clairvoyant. Or maybe Rey’s just that easy to read. She takes the offered seat, settling on it and pushing her bag on her knees, lips pursed and eyes downcast.

“So why are you really leaving?” Maz asks. Rey sighs. There’s no point in hiding it from  this woman. Maz had already figured out Rey’s attraction to Kylo long before even Rey had admitted it to herself, looking back on it. She thinks back to the pointed questions, to the shrewd looks as Maz talked about _Ben_ settling down, finding a pretty girl and putting a ring on her finger. Rey twines her fingers together, wringing them nervously and running a thumb over  said ring finger anxiously. It feels naked  now, bearing the tanning marks left from just a few weeks out in the sun, a sad echoed reminder of the beautiful silver band that had once adorned it. Maz notices, giving her knee a soft pat. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

“No,” Rey says, stilling her twitchy fidgeting. “No, it’s not that, It’s just… it’s complicated.”

“I’ve  got nothing but time, child.”

Had she been called a _child_ by anybody else, Rey would have balked. From Maz it’s a simple endearment, and a surprisingly soothing balm. She _does_ feel like a child, even though she’s long stopped being one. She certainly feels as helpless as one. And here Maz is offering to share her burden like a parent would— to make the biggest-seeming problems small and bite-sized, so that Rey can work through them and not simply choke on them and suffocate. It would be nice. So  Rey ends up telling Maz everything, the things she had said to Kylo and the things she _couldn’t_ , at least not until she  sloppily  wrote her earth-shattering revelations down on a piece of paper and neatly folded  them up for him to find in the morning.  Rey sinks lower and lower as she retells the story even as the weight lifts ever so slightly. By the time she’s done Maz just nods and takes a gulp of her cool tea, offering neither encouragement nor judgment.

“So, where to now?” Maz asks. Rey chews on her lip, staring across the yard at the flower bushes. The flower buds have bloomed now, beautiful pink and orange little flowers that threaten to take her breath away if only she weren’t so sad. She still feels bad for the one she’d crushed while talking to Finn on the phone, her love for plants and all things green triggering a twinge of regret. 

“Flying by the seat of your pants, eh?” Maz continues to fill in the silence. Rey nods slowly, both relieved and ashamed to admit it.

“ I’ve been doing that for a while, I’m afraid, and messing it up as I go,” Rey says. Maz pats her  knee  again.

“We all do when we’re young,” the old woman stares off into the distance. “You’d be alarmed at how much I didn’t know and didn’t get right at your age. That’s fine, Rey. That’s part of life. But you have to sometimes be honest with yourself. You can’t just keep hiding behind the hurt.”

Rey looks at Maz, her vision sharpening. Maz gives her a minute, understanding smile. 

“Tell me, Rey. Are you afraid of hurting, as you say, or are you just very afraid of falling in love?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Her mind immediately travels to the letter she’d written Kylo, to the words she’d put down on paper that she hadn’t had the courage to speak out loud. How’s she supposed to know? She’d only ever loved one other person in her life.  All she knows is she’d left because falling in love had led her to getting hurt and hurting others. Rey could hardly pry those two things apart, in her head. 

This time Maz grins.

“Not at all.” Maz says. “Do you love him?”

“I have too many issues.” Rey deflects.

Maz snorts. “We all have issues. But running away from them won’t solve them. What do you think _he_ did all those years ago? You’re not the first young person I’ve seen struggling, Rey.”

“So what should I do? Just… ignore them? I can’t do that.”

“No,” Maz agrees, “No, that would be a silly thing to do with your fears. But you can start by confronting them.”

**FORWARD**

 

Rey pulls her knees up on the giant king-sized bed and stares at her toes, trying not to fall asleep from exhaustion.  She’d seen nothing but hard airport benches and strange people for so many hours now, and after finally getting in a quick shower her bones want to succumb to slumber. But she didn’t come here to take over Finn’s shower and sleep. Sleep could wait.

Finn hasn’t really moved in half an hour, patiently waiting for her to say something, as he’d always done. Sweet, patient Finn. She’s thankful for  the window of silence, for the allowed time to collect her thoughts, even if she’s  a little awkward and embarrassed now at the way she’d come to be here. She’d  hurdled into his hotel and shown up at his door four hours  earlier, plastic bag with her meager  worldly  belongings in hand and exhaustion painted all over her face after sleeping exactly thirty minutes  while sitting on the last empty seat of her last-minute flight: a cramped little wedge of breathing air at the very back of the plane next to a snoring man and a fussy child. 

Finn had taken one good look at her and opened the door, brows rising upsettingly up and inward as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d then coaxed her to eat, and shower, fussing over her like a perpetual Mother Hen before slowly making her sit on the bed, the only available spot other than the floor. 

Rey presses herself up against the board, lips pursed and feeling so, so very exhausted. 

She had tried and sleep at the gate until boarding time much like she’d done before, only to sit about and done nothing but worry and stare at her phone— specifically, stare at Kylo’s name, at the little star next to it, resisting the temptation to dial and apologize _that_ way. He must have read her letter by now, and he probably wanted nothing to do with her.

Which might as well. It’s not like she’d particularly earned the right. 

Rey looks at Finn. They had only spoken so much after Rey had, for lack of a better word, blurted out her apology to him the second he’d opened the door. To which Finn had grovelled, informing her it had been _his_ fault, and they had fallen back into an old pattern — a comfortable, friendly pattern in which Rey hugged him tight, relief and happiness flooding her at seeing him, and Finn immediately began to fuss over her. Why had she not seen the pattern before?

They had never been made for each other. Not the way she had previously wanted. Sitting here with Finn felt like sitting next to  her older brother.  They’d certainly acted like it upon reuniting, she’d just always confused it for something else entirely, having nothing else to go off of.

The silence  is getting uncomfortable though, and she’d come back to try and mend her friendship, so Rey finally speaks. 

“How have you been, Finn? It’s been two months since we saw each other.”

Finn’s face is a riot of warring expressions, going from serious to regretful to pained, inevitably recounting the reason why they haven’t seen each other for that long. She sighs, knowing exactly how he feels.

“I don’t hold it against you, you know,” she says, looking back at her toes and wiggling them. Beside her Finn slumps a little. “I see now why you wanted room to think.”

There’s a beat of silence in which Rey thinks Finn might be hunting for words. When he finally asks his question, Rey feels a weight starting to lift off her shoulders.

“And what’s your verdict?” he asks.

“You were right," she says, feeling a weight finally lifting entirely. “You were right,  as always.” Rey chews on her lip, her voice lowering. “I don’t think we would have worked out. I… you can’t help me with everything, Finn. I have to start helping myself. You were there, _always_ there, and I didn’t know anything else of life so I clung to you and I… I mucked things up. I smothered what we _were_ , thinking that perhaps… maybe… I thought. I smothered what we were without understanding it to begin with. ”

She looks at him, but even though she thinks she should be crying there are no tears there, just  the sweet touch of wistful, final resignation. “We were what we were because we knew nothing else.” She  smiles ruefully and Finn, bless his soul, blushes. “I thought we’d be perfect together but the truth is… you said you’re not perfect, but neither am I. God, if there’s one thing I’ve learned these last two months is that I’m _nothing_ close to perfection.”

“I messed things up too, Rey,” Finn says, trying to save the situation from it being a one-sided wallowing pit. He bumps Rey with his shoulder, sighing gently before he grabs her hand and gives it a soft squeeze. “I panicked. I… I said things I shouldn’t have. I chickened out and left first.  I always do.  I know that, you know? You’re not the only one at fault here. It’s just… it had been so comfortable, and you’d always been there too, you know? But that’s all it had been. Comfortable and familiar.” He rubs the webbing between her knuckles, staring at them as though it’s the first time he’s truly looked. “It was comfortable coming home to you, and comfortable sleeping with you, but it felt like we were still teenagers— us against the world, making do because we had to— together because we just _were_. No reason beyond that  familiarity.”

Finn flushes, looking pained at having to admit the flaws he had never wanted to admit to, the flaws Rey had been so blind to. She giggles, “it would have been a disaster.”

Finn shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call it a disaster. There are worse things in life, but it just…” he stops, chewing his lip in that way that tells her he’s been mulling something for a while. His cheeks color again. “Can I be honest?”

“Always,” she says, sitting up, because,  despite their disagreements before and the awkward tension now, Finn is and will always be her friend.

“I— okay, before I say anything,” he starts,  words hitching with the beginning of speed and his nostrils flaring anxiously, and Rey can tell he’s nervous. And not just any kind of nervous, but nervous in a _what I say now may very well bring a world of suffering_ sort of nervous, "please know this has no bearing in our previous relationship and I _promise you,_ Rey, that it’s a recent development, and I don’t want you to hate me for it because God I can totally see how you’d think I’m an asshole but—“

“Finn,” she says,  truly  touching him for the first time  as she presses a hand to his forehead and tilts his head a little, forcing him to look at her and stop talking. His mouth hands open for a second, lower lip bobbing silently before he closes it, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “Finn, breathe. It’s okay,” she says, brows rising. “You can tell me.”

He looks  away, grinding his teeth in that  adorable if irritating way of his, grimacing to the right before his lashes flutter up and he gives her the most apologetic look on the planet.

“I fell in love, Rey,” he says.

Rey blinks.

“You  did?” she pulls her hand back slowly, feeling like she’s trying to look through a wet blanket to find the answer on the other side. All her brain comes up with are question marks. “When?”

Finn pouts. He _actually_ pouts, looking down at his intertwined fingers on his lap. “I think…I think it’s been there for a while but I didn’t realize it until recently.”

“Oh?” she asks, a small part of her immediately alighting with a twinge of possessiveness and jealousy,  because this is _her_ Finn. Even if there are no longer any romantic feelings, this is her best friend and an important person in her life and she’s always been very overprotective of those few but precious important things in her life — yet  Rey now knows to stomp it down and wait for the answer. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Boy.”

“Huh?”

“B-boy,” Finn  stutters out his answer, looking at anything but her. The next word comes out in a strained whisper. “Poe.”

Rey stares. Finn looks up, silently pleading her to not react, to not be angry. To not hate him—

Rey laughs.

She actually throws her head back and laughs. In some strange way, that puzzle piece suddenly falls into place, slotting together so very neatly she can’t even be mad. When she finally looks at him it’s with tears in her eyes, sad yet relieved tears because at least she _knows_ Poe. Poe is a wonderful human being, and Finn totally deserves that in his life.

“You fell in love with Poe! Poe with his illegally cute face, oh my God.” She chortles , throwing her arms around him in a relieved hug that Finn is more than ready to heartily reciprocate.

“So how is he?” Rey manages through her giggling once she pulls back, and the absolute look of delight on Finn’s face is all she needs. He immediately starts telling her how adorable Poe is, and how kind he is, and how he’d been so understanding and supportive after what happened and Finn found himself leaning on his help and his affection. 

“I fell in love, Rey,” he says, looking bashful and like a young boy, “One day it was  me and you, and then it was  just me, and then the next moment it was the two of us, Poe and I. And he, forever offering the support I needed because I _do_ love you, Rey, just not in the way I thought I could, and it hurt so bad, but Poe was there—”

Rey listens, listens _closely,_ and the similarities of what happened to Finn with her own fallout are so eerily close that she laughs again, this time with a slight hitched up sense of awe and panic. 

“Rey? Rey— are you ok? Oh god, I broke you. I broke you,” Finn finally says, alarm ringing in his voice, his usually deep timbre turning borderline squeaky. “I finally broke you.”

Rey laughs even harder. It helps that she’s been distanced from it all for two months. Yes, that certainly helps. She doubts she would have been laughing two months ago.

“No, no, it’s not that,” she whispers, and when Finn starts looking even more panicky she snorts, but this time the laughter comes with relief. “I just—“ she says, the tears now falling down the sides of her face,  mingled tears of mirth and sadness. How unfortunate that no matter what elicits such an emotional response, all tears look the same. But she’s relieved,  because the reason she hadn’t been able to talk for a half hour  had been guilt, guilt, so much guilt. Guilt over falling in love with another. Guilt eating at the marrow in her bones. Guilt she’d been working her courage up to admit to first so she could accomplish what she’d come to accomplish. And then Finn had, without knowledge, done what he’s always done best— he’d fixed it for her. He’d ripped the guilt away and thrown it out a window, leaving her free to speak. 

“Oh god, me too,” she blurts out. Finn stops, freezing on the spot, a similar response to her own at his confession. 

“What?” he asks. Rey looks at him, trying to dry her tears that refuse to stop flowing, but not because she’s amused or relieved for Finn this time. She sniffles.

“Me too,” she says through her hiccuped sobs, “I fell in love, too. And then I fucked it up.”

It takes a long time to tell Finn the whole tale. Apparently, Finn’s falling in love had been much gentler on his soul.  He makes her describe it all in excruciating detail — from the day she met him on the plane to the day she left — probably having the insight to ask because Rey starts rambling at random intervals, having trouble vocalizing her feelings.  By the time she finishes,  his frown has all but hidden his eyes under his brows, etching deeply into his face as he studies her tear-streaked face . And then she tells him about her letter, and her decision to leave.

“So you just… left? After he opened up?” he asks, tilting his head back in alarm. Rey nods, her shame  certainly deep enough to drown in.

“I got scared,” she says, rubbing at her snot covered nose and looking about as miserable as she feels. “I thought. I thought if I put some distance between us maybe he’d be able to move onto somebody worthier of him.”

“Isn’t that for him to decide?” Finn asks.

“I—“

Finn stretches his legs,  changing tracks. 

“What’s he like?” he asks.  Rey looks at him, tilting her head.

“He’s…” she says, rubbing her ring finger. “He’s stubborn, and secretive, with a dry sense of humor and a tongue sharp enough to cut glass.”

Finn smirks. “So, like you, then?”

Rey shoots him a withering glance and he puts his hands up, pleading for mercy, though Rey knows he’s right. Which is what prompts her to keep talking, “but he’s also kind, and attentive, and _sweet_ beyond compare — to me, at least. I can’t say that for others. He somehow, despite only having just met me, gets me in a way only...well… only _you_ get me. It’s like he’s always been there, always had a spot in the back of my head and I can’t shake him.”

“How’s that a bad thing?” Finn asks, unable to keep the confusion from his voice. “It sounds like a good thing to me?”

“That’s the problem, it _is_ a good thing,” she says, and when Finn’s frown deepens, Rey struggles to find the words with which to express her worries. She hadn’t vocalized it outside of Maz and Kylo, but she’s afraid she might not have done a great job at it, so she tries again with Finn. If there’s anyone who could _understand_ , it would be him. If he doesn’t, well, she’s doomed.

“Remember how I followed you here?” she asks. Finn rolls his eyes, looking a little despaired.

“How could I forget?”

“I feel like I did the same with him. Or started to. It felt like history repeating itself. I hyperfocused on the _one_ thing I thought— You and I broke up and I was wary of trusting somebody else with my feelings, especially one I didn’t know that much about. It was like having this cloud hanging over our heads , always present, black and heavy and just _waiting_ to rain on our parade. The Kylo Ren I know with the Ben Solo I didn’t, and everyone seemed to know about a piece of him he refused to discuss and it just felt like he just didn’t want to let me in. And how could I trust somebody like that with my _future_ , Finn? With…with… with _everything_?  With you, with you I knew everything. There were no secrets. I got scared, but I still couldn’t help it, he draws me like a  moth to a flame and I just— I tried to find a way to rationalize giving in, and in doing so I pushed him too far. Just like I pushed _you_ too far. And I finally understood, Finn,” she says, eyes sad and voice cracking, nearly hoarse from trying to rush through her explanation without pause, “I understood that _I_ had been the problem. Not you, not our relationship. Me. And I saw it happening again with him and I just. I couldn’t do that to him. I was afraid I’d ruin it, and he’s so nice, and so gentle and _like_ me, and he _likes_ me, but I couldn’t have a repeat of—”

“Us,” Finn finishes, his voice soft and overflowing with compassion. Rey nods again, relief flooding her that Finn had understood. 

“That’s why I left. I could feel another falling out in my bones, just waiting around the corner,” she says, looking at her fingers. “I was trying to prevent it.”

Finn’s expression is blank. It remains blank after she finishes, Rey having to swallow hard to try and get her throat some much needed moisture. She stares once more at her toes, at her plastic bag in the corner. She feels like she’s eighteen again and floating, no anchors, no safe harbors. She’d chosen to pull herself up by her bootstraps and just make it on her own this time. So when Finn says nothing she accepts it for what it is. He’s seen her fuck up and has nothing further to say.

But he does have something to say. It’s just not what she’d expected to hear. It’s not pity or him chastising her.

“You _really_ love him.” Finn says so very matter of factly it startles her. “God, it’s so obvious. You’re so obvious.  You’re not scared of a fall out. You’re confused and scared of not having any control over what you feel, so you ran. Did you tell him how you felt?”

Rey sulks, being called obvious not sitting well with her even though she knows it’s true. 

“In a letter.”

“And then you _LEFT_?!”

“I know. I _know_ I’m an idiot, Finn,” Rey says, throwing her arms up in the air. “But I couldn’t just say it to his face after fighting like that. And I couldn’t face him after realizing what I’d done, but I also couldn’t just… not say it.” Rey’s lower lip trembles but she sucks it in, refusing to break down. She’s a grown up and sometimes grown ups made decisions that hurt, and she would have to learn to live with that hurt. 

“You have the weirdest way of showing that you care, Rey,” Finn grunts, then sighs, pulling her in for a nother bone crushing hug. “Is there anything I can do to help you fix it, Peanut? Help with another plane ticket back or...” 

It is then that Rey looks at him clearly — _truly clearly_ , then smiles, cementing what she’d already known. Isn’t it hilarious that the first thing out of his mouth after she airs her grievances is the same reason why she’d fixated on him for so long? Why she’s developed her hero worship complex? 

_Did you follow after him because he’s always been there, with friendship and love, to save you from yourself?_

Maz had been so very right, after all. She can see it exactly for what it’d been this whole time now, the lightbulb lighting up to full strength.

“You can’t help me fix everything forever, Finn,” she says, giving him one tight hug before pulling out of his arms. Finn studies her face.

“Then why are you here, Rey?”

“Closure,” she says after a moment’s deliberating. “And to mend our friendship. You are my friend, after all. I wanted to put this all to rest before I went home.”

She’d managed to get back enough money to buy a cheap ticket to Portugal. The rest would be put towards a ticket home, and she’d start over again. Idly she wonders how much it would cost to buy another ticket back to Ireland.

Finn tilts his head, cutting through her thoughts. “Did you?”

It’s _her_ turn to be confused.

“I don’t understand,” she says. 

Finn sighs, rubbing his cheek like he can’t believe he has to say it out loud.

“Peanut, you’re practically transparent,” he says. “You don’t need to _mend_ our friendship. You know as well as I that we’d always be friend s. We always have. Sure, we had a rocky ending to a _romantic relationship_ but we’re still _friends_.  Thick as thieves, remember? Always. So you’re not here for that. And you had your closure. You texted me it. So you’re not here for closure.” He stops, eyes roving over her eyebrow, her nose, then gluing themselves on her eyes, the intensity of which makes her both want to shrink away and pay closer attention. “I don’t think you’re here for closure. I think you’re here for permission.”

_“_ _Permission?"_

It is a testament to Finn’s character that he doesn’t get upset at her for being slow to realize something, simply waits for her to come to the realization at her own pace. Permission for… what? She hadn’t needed to ask for permission for anything in life for years. Not when she’d been self sufficient enough to achieve what she wanted all on her own, to find the things that she wanted and just go for it—

_Permission._

When realization dawns on her, his smile widens. It’s a sad yet understanding smile. It’s okay to move on.

“I don’t need permission.” She says, like the skies opened up and revealed the truth to her.

“No,  you don’t,” Finn agrees.

“I don’t need a reason, either.”

“Nope.”

“I fucked up.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I fucked up badly. I fucked up worse now than I did before.”

“Mhmm.”

“I have to go,” she says, scrambling out of bed as Finn quickly moves aside and lets her get off it. She shoves her foot into one of her shoes. Then turns around and looks at Finn in a moment’s hesitation. “Should I go?”

Finn shrugs. “I can’t make that decision for you.”

“What if he hates me?”

Finn smiles sadly, because even he knows that it’s a very real possibility. But Finn had never been one to back down from a challenge— Rey had learned to do the same from him.  “Then at least you tried.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and in that single  breath she sees the last so many years of her life flash in front of her in Finn’s kind face. It’s the turning of a new page that had always scared her, and once upon a time she thought she should do that with _Finn_. Finn, who sits here in love with her other friend, who had seen her through her worst and through her best and through it all, and had never judged either way. Who had been a tempering force in her life, yet needed to live his own. She looks at her best friend and smiles weakly, then shoves her other foot into her shoe, haphazardly throwing her hair in a bun as she digs in her plastic bag for her wallet and her keys.

Rey hands Finn the keys with a near hysterical grin on her face, one which Finn matches with a very manic one, like two kids in on a secret only they know, their hands knuckle deep in the cookie jar.

“I have to go.”

The last thing she sees is Finn holding the hotel room door open as she runs.

 

****

 

Rey had pulled plenty of miracles off in her life, or as close to miracles as a young twenty three year old could with nothing but muscle, charm, and wit, but damn if this hadn’t felt like walking on water. She’d had to sweet talk a cabbie who barely spoke English to _please hurry up_ because his fifty miles an hour were just not cutting it for her, having grown up in a place full of yellow cabs with crazy cabbies that flew faster than the speed of light— not that that is possible, but it certainly felt that way.

She’d managed to get through a line while impatiently checking her phone the whole time and, with a bit of pleading, had managed to have the lady at the desk find her a seat in an already full flight that _shouldn’t have had a seat_ , but God bless last minute cancellations even if it drained her of ninety percent of what meager funds she’d had left. Then she’d flown past security, gotten plenty of stares at her black trash bag with her clothes and her wallet in it, flashing her passport impatiently and thankful that thestamp on it demarking her as an American was practically a guarantee that she could go just about anywhere. By the time she’d boarded the plane, she felt very much like the girl in JFK. Except, instead of having an expensive bag and flattering clothes to impress Finn with, she’s wearing one of Finn’s old t-shirts over her jeans and she looks like she hasn’t seen the tail end of _rest_ in a week and a half.

Rey plops herself into her seat and straps in, and immediately starts trying to call Kylo. She has five minutes until they take off and her phone has to go off.

Five minutes.

The phone rings, and rings, and rings. And nothing.

Rey tastes nervous bile and swallows it down, cringing internally. Of course he wouldn’t pick up the phone. She’d made this bed, now she gets to lie in it. But maybe, maybe she could apologize, backtrack and try again even past the nerves eating at her. 

She tries to call once again, and once again there’s nothing. By the time the attendants inform them in both English and Portuguese that their phones have to go off, she wants to groan and cry and generally just disappear. Rey stashes her phone away and prepares to have the most nerve-wracking flight of her life , and not just because she hates flying. And this time there’s no Kylo Ren to calm her down if they hit turbulence or the sky falls open or she dies of self-inflicted agony.

That’s fine. She might just deserve that. All of that.

Two hours and twenty five minutes of hell, here we go.

Rey spends her time trying to think of everything she wants to say, practicing her apologies and looking out the window at the pillowed-white skies without truly seeing. She tries to imagine every possibility and every outcome, and they all look horrible, but she looks for the silver lining. She’s _doing this_.

She’s going for it. 

She’s not going to ask for permission, not even from her brain. Her heart’s now on full on operational mode and she might regret her decision later when Kylo turns her out on her ass, but she won’t regret having done it. Said heart thunders at the prospect with as much trepidation as it does excitement, and Rey counts the seconds in her head as those two hours and twenty five minutes of flight time feel like eternity and a day. 

Getting out of the plane takes longer, unfortunately, but being able to turn on her phone  is a massive relief. Until she realizes there are no missed calls, that is.

He’s going to reject her, she’s sure. 

He’s going to look at her with those big puppy eyes of his that scream _you hurt me_ and slam the door in her face, probably. Rey tries to push her gnawing anxiety to the back of her head as she hops on a bus from Dublin to Dingle — the only mode of transporation she can afford now — and, for once, the Irish gods smile  down on her, as if showing their pleasure at the fact that she’s finally decided to listen. There are no cows on the road or dying engines, and it’s not raining, and no crazy potholes for the wheels to fall off in, and this might be the one time the universe finally got on board with her plans, as if to say _go forth, young padawan._ So she does. She  tries to sit still through it all, anxiously checking the time on her phone every couple of minutes, though she hardly needs to. The countdown she’s paying attention to isn’t on her screen, really. Her internal clock is screaming that she’s racing against her own personal Armageddon, and the longer she’s gone the more unforgivable she becomes, so Rey is _very_ invested in getting to Dingle soon. 

She looks out the windows, the beautiful green scenery and passing towns blurring into one another,  blobs of light and green while  her thoughts focus elsewhere.

She’d been such an idiot. _Such_ an idiot. Since when had running from her issues solved anything? Hadn’t she done that before to horrible results? And maybe she’s just running on adrenaline, and her thoughts are a little foggy, but every time she thinks she should back out and stick to her previous decision she remembers Finn’s face , looking at her with that deep sadness in his eyes because Finn knows. _He knows_. He’d seen her grow up, and  get  hurt, and learn to build walls and taller fences around herself, letting in very few select people beyond them. He’d seen her have to live with years of abuse and learn to bury her abandonment issues, so how couldn’t she see them in Kylo? Why couldn’t she acknowledge them head on?

Rey chews on her lower lip, clutching her trash bag closer to her chest. 

No, she doesn’t need to ask herself that question. It’s as obvious as the sun shining overhead. His issues matched hers, and she hadn’t known how to handle it. She thinks of Maz. 

_It’s not just love that carries you through, but compromise. Understanding. Empathy._

Rey closes her eyes, breathing in deeply, replaying that advice over and over, overlayed with Kylo’s words.

_And yet you mope, accusing me of not understanding you as if I don’t want the exact same thing out of life._

God, she’d been so stupid. 

She had heard what she’d wanted to hear. She had heard the insults rather than the full message, just like he had, because she _knows_ he had. He’d zeroed in on Finn _readily_.

He wants the same thing she does. He’d always wanted the same thing. 

Rey sighs, looking out the window, then she gets up and walks over on wobbly legs to the driver.

“Excuse me, how much longer to Dingle?” she asks. 

The bus driver smiles a placating smile, the kind that tells her he knows a foreigner when he sees one from a mile away.

“At least six hours, lass. You might want to take a nap. I’ll let you know when we get there,” he says, tapping the microphone. Rey’s heart drops.

Why the heck did the country have to be so big? She nods her gratitude anyway and returns to her seat, now feeling antsy. Six hours. _At least_.

_Please, universe. I’ve had a pretty messed up day. Please help me out here._

A little over six hours is a lot of time to mentally flog yourself for all of your mistakes.

By the time she makes it there, and by the time she’s walked from the station to the pub, Rey’s legs ache and she’s a little out of breath, lungs burning with exertion and unease. The sun’s about to set, the skies burning red-orange, angry and gloriously beautiful as she watches the light dance on the  now brightly painted  pub sign, Ahch _-To’s Pub, Bed and Breakfast_. She stands in front of it, her arms limp at her sides, holding onto her belongings as she looks up at the windows. There’s a light on upstairs. Their bedroom. _Theirs_.

Rey looks at her phone. No missed calls. 

Then the light goes off. 

She frowns, staring at it. It’s a little too early to go to bed. 

Maybe she’d missed her chance. 

Her feet refuse to move, rooted to the paving stones. It’s one thing to think about all the possible outcomes and try to figure out all the possible answers. It’s another thing entirely to be faced with them. 

She swallows hard, gnawing on her lower lip anxiously as she debates what she should do. Knocking on the door would be the wisest thing.

Rey takes in a deep breath, steeling herself for whatever outcome happens to be the card she’s dealt, then takes a step forward.

Just as she’s doing so the door opens, and her breath catches when she sees the source of her nerves walking backward out of the pub. He’s in his usual uniform. Black jeans, black steel-toed boots, and his leather jacket. She wonders what color his tshirt is, but she figures she’ll find out here in a second. It is with no small amount of satisfaction that she watches him actually _lock_ the door, that is until her brain catches up to her and she realizes he’s got his duffelbag thrown over his shoulders.

Her stomach drops all the way to her toes, her throat closing immediately. She waits, every second stretching out until it’s taut and painful and Rey might be getting a little woozy from not breathing. 

“Kylo.”

But then he turns. He turns and time stops.

“Kylo,” she repeats, her stomach flopping backwards and dropping on her liver. “Are you… leaving?”

 


	38. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going the extra mile had never felt so wonderfully sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. I'll save my parting words for Rey's epilogue, but for now it's time to give you guys something else! Here's the playlist for A Proposal by Any Other Name. 
> 
> Some of these songs were suggested to me, most were songs I found while writing. Then there's also a lovely playlist put together by a fan, which will be the last link. Enjoy!
> 
> 1\. [Livin’ on a prayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk) \- Bon Jovi  
> 2\. [Sleep on the floor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mj-2SVMG4) \- The Lumineers  
> 3\. [Made For You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY9H2GiEX9w) \- Alexander Cardinale  
> 4\. [Kill the Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uGOBAnWkTc) \- Matt Nathanson  
> 5\. [Happy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM) \- Pharrell Williams  
> 6\. [Shut up and dance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjdIJ5ZSpSk) \- Walk The Moon  
> 7\. [Best Fake Smile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4NpXfRCgGY) \- James Bay  
> 8\. [I and love and you](https://youtu.be/T0eSpAgqrWo) \- The Avett Brothers  
> 9\. [Kiss me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtp3dLJVQA) \- Rebel ft. Sophie Simmons  
> 10\. [I found](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj6V_a1-EUA) \- Amber Run  
> 11\. [Shape of You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwWNGJdvx8) \- Ed Sheeran  
> 12\. [Please Don't Say You Love Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb3tL_U4az8) \- Gabrielle Aplin  
> 13\. [Can’t sleep love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogI_pMoDKAA) \- Pentatonix  
> 14\. [Oceans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpdXBjwXbMg) \- Seafret  
> 15\. [Sideways](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-zZeGtP4Lk) \- Wrabel  
> 16\. [1965](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4REqXDKvxU) \- Zella Day  
> 17\. [Start again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEWGy63VUoU) \- Conrad Sewell  
> 18\. [Tokyo Sunrise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqELpIUh0o) \- LP  
> 19\. [Clarity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Q7GISatW0) \- Zedd ft. Foxe  
> 20\. [Issues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqMyh4ILIg) \- Julia Michaels  
> 21\. [Mess is Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg90JDJF0PU) \- Vincent Joy  
> 22\. [Perfect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UQzJfsT2eo) \- Ed Sheeran  
> 23\. [Take You Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv1k8GDBplA) \- Scars on 45  
> Extra: [A Proposal by Any Other Name playlist](https://lucidlucy.tumblr.com/post/160174646115/thefaultinourauthorss-a-proposal-by-any-other) by @thefaultinourauthors (on Tumblr)
> 
> I have stared at this chapter for too long, so apologies for mistakes! I'll go back and edit it again in a week, just to be safe. Thank you, my friends. Enjoy the chapter and I hope you've enjoyed reading this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Of all the things Kylo had expected to see so soon, Rey’s run-down, defeated face in front of his entrance gate had not been one of them. He blinks slowly, trying to figure out if it’s only a mirage, a trick of his overeager imagination, but when he opens his eyes again she’s still standing there, in a too large t-shirt and a plastic trash bag hanging from her limp hand at her side.

He stills, mimicking her by letting his hands go lax.

It had been less than fourty eight hours since he’d last seen her and yet it feels like it had been a lifetime, and he can’t help the monumental surge of protectiveness that washes over him at the sight. It’d been less than forty eight hours, yet simultaneously it’d also been the most torturous not-quite forty eight hours of his life. 

“Kylo,” she says again, her voice just loud enough to reach him and struggling to do just that, but the sound is music to his ears. He glues his lips shut, pursing them as he watches her from under heavy lids even as his heartbeat tries to get ahead of itself.

Rey shifts her weight uncomfortably. “Are you… leaving?”

“You mean like how you left?” The words are blurted out before he can stop himself, the sharp pang trailing the end of that question mark making it difficult to breathe. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s back, the result of some strange concoction of adrenaline and his brain firing off all sorts of signals at once, trying to balance her presence with the knowledge of how much her leaving had hurt him. By the way Rey flinches and her face twists, she knows it did.

 _Good_.

Yet Rey says nothing, which infuriates him. He’d dealt with nothing but silence in her absence and he misses her voice. Another one of those oddly conflicting signals shocking his nervous system, that one.

“ _Should_ I leave?” He asks again, imbuing the two simple words with acid. He might be a grown adult who’s head over heels for this woman but he’s also a little petty sometimes.

The truth is he _had_ intended to leave. He’d intended to go track her whereabouts because he’s a bloody idiot and _she_ wouldn’t get to decide when itwas _enough_ for him. So the fact that she’s standing at his door is mind-boggling, and it’s doing weird things to his brain and his heart. Rey’s face falls further, displaying nothing of the strong, determined woman he’d known for so long there. Only a tired, vulnerable girl who looks like she’s still on her feet by sheer willpower and nothing else.

Rey licks her lips nervously, then takes a step forward. He waits for her to stop, to change her mind, but when she takes yet another valiant step towards him his stomach fills with butterflies. What’s he turned into, a grown man feeling butterflies?

“I- I made a huge mistake. I am so, so sorry,” she croaks out, and he can already feel his resolve starting to crumble, so he bites on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from melting into a puddle of goo because, despite the giant, crushing waves of relief and happiness he feels to see her standing right there, there’s still that vestigial hurt left.

“Are you?” he asks, putting on his best attorney mask to keep from giving his whole soul away. Rey looks like she wants to cry but nothing comes, and he wonders how much she’s cried already. She nods, head bobbing up and down mournfully, looking ever the helpless duckling he’d found exposing her neck to the elements before.

“I need to hear you say it, Rey,” he says, taking a step forward to close the gap slightly.

He’d been so, _so_ ready to chase. So ready to give into his impulses. Instead he’d decided to wait it out forty-eight hours , a not insignificant amount of fear holding him back that she would tell him she loved him but still would refuse him. But then he'd checked his phone, and that had changed everything. 

His lungs had jammed themselves into his throat when he’d seen five missed calls from her an hour ago, all of which had happened during his shower. He hadn’t noticed them because he’d been too busy avoiding his phone so he wouldn’t call _her_ and sound like a whiny, pathetic, needy idiot. So that he could, for once, think properly instead of bulldozing his way forward as he’d always done. Yet she'd called.

He’d decided to wait a little longer , then — Just a _tiny little longer —_  his forty-eight hour window slowly closing in on him. He'd taken the wait as a challenge to himself that he _could_ do this. She’d tried calling him, which meant there was a possibility she had something to say. He’d w ait for her to make the first move, to call him again, to give him reason to chase fully and unabashedly. As the hours wore on, though, his patience thinned. Whatever, bulldozing would have to do for now.

Yet by the skies, she had delivered. Now she stands in front of him, tired and dejected, and he just wants to scoop her up in his arms, but he needs to hear her say it.

“I'm sorry,” she says, “I was a blundering idiot and there’s no forgiving my walking out like I did without even saying goodbye, but I just… If there’s a chance, just a _small chance_ , if you could find it in yourself to give me just _one_ chance— I know I don’t deserve it. I haven’t deserved a lot lately, but I _am_ sorry. I just… I just want to belong… here…”

That very last word comes out in a whisper. Had he not been hanging onto every syllable for dear life, he would have missed it, lost to a strong gust of wind. Kylo tilts his head, inwardly crumbling, bursting at the seams, and all the other things he’s usually apt to do whenever his emotions take control, because every single word she’s saying is what _he_ would say. What _he_ should say. 

“Rey, look at me.”

Her eyes snap up and he holds them. He steps closer, her head dips back, craning to look up at him and he has to work on overdrive to keep the goofy smile off his face at that motion. So he clears his throat and tries to remember every word she’d said as she said them.

“I am sorry,” he repeats slowly, “I was a blundering idiot and there’s no forgiving my demanding that you give in when I know first-hand all you’ve been through, and neither is my refusal to give you that one bit of me when you had given me just as much." Kylo breathes in then exhales slowly, "I understand a relationship takes _two_. I was told that I needed to learn empathy, and learn to compromise, and if there’s a chance — just a small chance  — that you can find it in yourself to give me that one thing I don’t deserve…” He leans down, breathing her in. That stupidly intoxicating floral shampoo is still clinging to her as he rests his lips on her forehead and gives it the most minute of kisses. “Then maybe we can figure out our issues together. What do you say?”

The very air vibrates around them but he doesn't notice. He's too busy waiting for her answer, every nerve in him a live wire. Rey sags into herself, nodding against his lips, releasing all the anxious tension bottled up in his torso with that single motion. He feels her free hand move up, bunching itself into a tiny fist on his t-shirt. 

“You don’t get to decide for me,” he says, placing his chin on her forehead. “Not after all this time. You don’t get to decide whether you’re unworthy of love. Of _my_ love. That’s my call to make. You think you have trust issues? I’ve held a stupid grudge for sixteen years.” Rey flinches in his arms again. “But if I can deal with those issues so can you with yours, and you can go as slow as it takes. And I’ll be there the whole way. I’ve had almost a decade more than you to sort some of my crap out, and I still struggle with it, if my massive fuck up hasn’t made it obvious.”

Kylo removes his chin from its perch and looks down, drinking it all in.

“I didn’t think you’d forgive me,” she says, eyes fixed on his collarbone, perhaps too embarrassed to look up.

He snorts.

“There were a lot of times I didn’t think you’d forgive _me_ ,” he says, “yet here we are.”

And here they are, indeed. Standing in a sleepy town in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but the sky’s bright pink and red and she looks gorgeous in it, so he steps back from her grasp and takes her all in in all her disheveled glory. This is the girl he wants by his side, no matter how difficult it gets. He hadn’t expected to find her, not this soon. Not _ever_. He’d prepared for that possibility, as much as it had pained him to do so, and yet…

Rey’s lower lip trembles and she bites down on it, refusing to show weakness. Kylo smiles, tilting his head sideways and settling back on his weight, hands in pockets. This moment needs to be remembered, this sliver of time and space. The moment she _came back_ for him.

Rey stands awkwardly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with nervous fingers.

“Can we start over then?” she asks.

Kylo grins.

“Sure,” he says. “Ask me what time it is.”

He has to bite back his laughter at the perplexed look on her face. “Go on, Rey.”

“Okay,” she clears her throat, a soft, timid rasped sound. “Would you be so kind to tell me what time it is?”

He hadn’t heard those words in a long time. Whoever taught her how to ask for the time must have been the most proper, well-mannered person in the world. Kylo pulls out his phone and turns on the screen, then looks at her.

“It’s twelve past eight,” he says. He pockets the phone. “There. We started over, now. Let’s skip ahead a bit, because I don’t think I can wait on this to go in chronological order.”Kylo digs in his pocket, feeling for the pointy end of a metal heart cradled by adoring hands. He pulls it out, stepping up close. Rey’s eyes immediately fall to the ring, eyes widening.

“Would you go out with me?” he breathes out the words, looking at her even as his fingers give into their slight tremble. “Not a fake marriage. Not a fake engagement. Just a real girlfriend. The kind that goes on real dates and has real conversations with me about really important things that may or may not make us uncomfortable, but that we’ll work out together?”

Thankfully, she doesn't make him wait. Rey gives him a shy nod, her cheeks tinged with the most flattering shade of pink as he lifts her hand and slowly slips in the ring again, then he pulls it up to his lips and kisses her finger, then her palm, before gently letting it fall so he can do what he’s been wanting to do for a while now. He wraps one strong arm around her waist and uses his free hand to cup her cheek.

“Don’t run away ever again, please,” he murmurs against her skin, nuzzling her softly and pressing gentle circles on her spine. Rey shivers, clinging onto his shirt, and the feel of her melting in his arms is all the confirmation he needs that _this_ is where he wants to be.

Rey nods once again, burying her face in his collarbone. Her breathing’s shallow, and her shoulders slump tiredly, but Kylo once again tilts her head back so he can look at her in the eye. “Is that a promise?” he asks.

God, but she’s beautiful. Tired and with dark circles, a mess of wavy hair and freckles, and he’s never seen anything more breathtaking in his entire life. The sublime riot of pinks, oranges and purples painted in the sky can't hold a candle to this girl. Rey smiles, rewarding him with one strong nod. “I promise.”

“Good,” he says, unable to keep the relief out of his voice. He leans in and kisses her cupid’s bow, the gentlest thing he’s ever been able to do for anybody. But he needs her closer, so he tugs her up with the one arm. Rey squeals, legs reflexively moving to wrap around his waist and arms swinging around his shoulders while he uses his free one to hoist up her rear, giving her a devilish smile and kissing her again.

“Good,” he repeats, kissing her deeper this time. Rey sighs into him, her fingers instinctively delving into his hair, gently carding through. He can tell she’s holding back, afraid, perhaps, that she’s finally giving in. That’s fine. As long as she’s there, he’ll take it at whatever pace she needs him to.

There is, however, one thing he needs to do before he does anything else. Kylo pulls away from the kiss. Rey’s lips hang open, damp and swollen from his kisses, the sight giving him extreme satisfaction before he tears his eyes away and finds hers.

“Did you mean what you said in the letter?” he asks. Rey studies his face, her expression shifting as she tries to focus, starting to twist with pain, so he corrects. “Your feelings towards me, did you mean them?”

She looks at his mouth, then up at him, the look of pain quickly dissipating as her pupils expand in her gorgeous hazel eyes, looking very much like she wants to swallow him up in one go.

“Yes.”

Well that’s one way to inflate his ego.

 “Say it then.”

Christ, he wants to hear her say it. He craves it as if it were oxygen, his arms tighteningaround her, pulling her impossibly close. Rey reciprocates it. She does so hesitantly at first, but she’s caressing his hair and his scalp and for once looking at _him_ like she wants all there is to offer, so he stands still and lets her come to him. She leans in, her nose brushing against his.

“I love you,” she whispers so very softly against his mouth. “It’s crazy, and maybe a little reckless, but I do. And I’m sorry about what I did.”

In response, he turns around with a stupid grin on his face and starts walking back towards their home. It takes a little maneuvering, but they manage to get the door open. Rey drops her bag behind him, prying his off his shoulders and tossing it down to join hers while he balances her to keep her from falling. He kicks the door closed with his foot once inside and slowly carries her all the way up the stairs and into their bedroom. _Their_ bedroom. He’s chuffed about that, too.

It takes but a moment to fall into bed with her, Kylo caressing her face as he slots his body between her legs, intent on spending as much time as humanly possible showing her how much he enjoyed hearing those three magical words. Her blush is now permanent on her face as she traces his features and he lets her. Rey brings her fingers to his cheek, following the soft hollows of his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, the slant of his eyebrow. She ghosts her fingers over his lids, down his cupid’s bow, gently caresses his lip, runs them along his jawline.

“I’m scared,” she admits, and Kylo could drown in her eyes. He kisses the tip of her nose, gently caresses her arms, her hip, her face, anywhere he can reach.

“I know,” he says, knowing exactly how she feels. He can feel it deep in his bones, the tug towards that light inside her, towards something he’s never had in his life, and it’s _terrifying_. He kisses her again, holding her like the most fragile thing in the world even though he knows there’s nobody else who could match him. “I know. So am I. Can we be scared together?”

She nods, placing a soft kiss on his nose. The tenderness of that moment washes over them slowly, Kylo and Rey taking the time to simply bask in each other. It's impossible for him to keep his lips from hers longer than necessary, though, so he tasks himself with peppering her with gentle little kisses.

“I love you,” he says, then repeats himself, cementing every word with another kiss. 

I - _kiss_ \- love _\- kiss -_ you - _kiss -_ Rey _._

Rey whimpers at the words and the affection, caught in twin waves of unadulterated awe and relief, so he moves quickly to steal the whimper from her, wanting her awe and her dreams and her everything. He’s rewarded with her wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. Her legs cage his waist in and Rey surrenders, that surrender audible in her voice, visible in the way her muscles relax and her expression softens. Kylo sinks into her, into her warmth and her soft embrace, feeling for the first time in a long time like he’s where he belongs. He nuzzles her, nips at her lower lip and licks it gently, rolling it between his teeth until Rey grants him access.

His hands travel, moving up from her hip, her waist, cradling her ribcage over her shirt with strong fingers as he grazes the underside of his thumbs along the soft dips under her breasts, tracing them before continuing on. Rey writhes under him for more, and he prays for patience so that he doesn’t just jump her bones right here. He laces their fingers together, determined to take it as slow as she needs.

“Kylo,” she murmurs, a soft whine blown into his ear. He dips his head in and kisses her jawline, her neck, leaving feather-light touches against her skin. The heat is scorching and he wants to burn in it.

“Shhh,” he soothes, flicking his tongue against the shell of her ear. “We don’t have to do anything. Just stay here, let me kiss you.”

He can’t get enough. His senses are drowning in her, in the smell of her, the feel of her breath on his temple, the velvet softness of her skin and the strength of her legs as she clings to him, knees pressing against his sides to keep him in place. He smiles at that, gently suckling and nipping at a tender spot right below her ear that elicits a soft hiss from her, every single response making the soft coil of heat in his belly tighten, and _oh_ she’s _so very_ responsive. Rey manages to loosen her hands from his grip and immediately wraps them around his shoulders, tugging at him, nails digging in, demanding that he close the inch or so of space between his torso and hers and rotating her hips until his jaw unhinges in a groan. His vision goes a little blurry, lashes fluttering as he murmurs into her ear.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

She nods so hard it shakes the bedframe a little. Kylo laughs.

“You sure you won’t regret it later?” he asks, and in response Rey bites his shoulder, making him hiss.

“Just kiss me and touch me already,” Rey growls. He looks at her wild, wide eyes and feels yet another wave of obnoxious self-satisfaction.

“I thought I was,” he teases, kissing her nose. Rey lets out a soft ‘ _hmph_ ’ and gyrates her hips again. She may have been scared about being emotionally vulnerable, but that’s about as far as her fears go.

“Stop teasing me,” she chides, a little out of breath once _her_ teasing backfires on her when she gasps. He’s quickly growing hard. He grinds his hips into hers again, eyebrows rising in an obvious dare. Rey blushes and Kylo loses count of how many times she’s done so, deciding he likes the look of that flush on her skin.

“As the lady commands.”

Kylo props himself up on one elbow by her head, angling his body so he can finally move between them. He runs his fingers down her collarbone, between the valley of her breasts, feeling the sharp rise and fall of her breathing at his touch. He splays his fingers, letting thumb and pinky graze her on the way down towards her abdomen, over her belly button, his middle finger dipping into the small hollow there as it continues down.

“You’re stunning, did you know that?” he says, looking at his own hand as it holds over her quivering skin, feeling the vibrations under his fingertips. He moves again, over her hip, down her thigh, grabbing at the edge of her ridiculous t-shirt and hiking it up slowly on his way back up. Rey whines when skin meets skin at the edge of her jeans, so very close to where she's been trying to guide him, watching him like a hawk. He gives her a smile, nimbly undoing the button and tugging the zipper down, loosening her jeans from their snug fit on her hipbones. Rey tries to grab him, pull him back in, but he shakes his head and continues his slow, torturous exploration.

Her shirt hikes up, up, up over his forearm as he starts back up, exposing the creamy, tan skin of her torso to him. His mouth waters immediately and Kylo moves down until he can plant soft kisses on her lower abdomen. “Simply stunning.”

Rey whines again, fingers laced in his hair, twitching with an anxious need to grab at his roots and guide him. Kylo looks up and winks at her, waiting for the moment she gives in and tugs, then gives her stomach a soft nip, a nibble, and a lick, fingers bunching on the t-shirt so he can push it up further. He trails soft, warm, sometimes damp kisses over every bit of exposed skin he can get his mouth and tongue and teeth on.

Rey gets impatient though, and he _adores_ that impatience in her now, his mouth meeting the front clasp of her bra.

“I thought I said to stop teasing me,” she mutters, eyes glassing over in needy desperation and brows burrowed as she glares at him accusingly. “Sadist.”

Kylo laughs, leaning up and planting a giant kiss on her mouth. “Maybe I am,” he pulls back, “do you want to do the honors or should I?”

Rey doesn’t wait another moment. She lifts herself up off the bed just long enough to yank the t-shirt off her head and toss it unglamorously over the side of the bed. The second she does, Kylo grabs her wrists and pins them above her head, lifting himself up slowly until he can see all of her. He straddles her hips, placing his other hand between her breasts, his fingertips dipping into the hollow of her collarbone.

“Keep them there,” he orders, indicating her hands, letting go only when she makes it apparent that she’ll obey, then runs his thumb over the tiny clasp at the front of her bra. A soft click later, the fabric falls off her pert breasts and he groans involuntarily, this time with sheer hunger, leaning in to once again worship her, giving her neck and her jaw with his undivided attention. “Maybe I’m a sadist… or maybe I just want to take my time. You came back, Rey. We have all the time in the world.”

His hand moves from its resting place slowly to the left, under her breast, feeling for the frenetic heartbeat below. He licks his lips, breathing in to try and moderate his own pulse as his fingers find a quickly hardening nipple when he cups her breast.

“You’re mine now,” he says, trying and failing to keep a low growl at bay. “And I’m yours. And we have all the time in the world.”

Rey’s first moan sends fire burning through his veins. “Will you let me take my time?” he asks. Rey can only stutter out a couple of incomprehensible sounds when he pinches and gently tugs on her nipple, letting it rest and circling it with the pad of his thumb before tugging again.

“Is that a yes?”

Rey nods sharply again, which earns her a hard exhale into her ear as he grinds his hips down a third time. “Good. So, so good, Duckling. I have so much to learn about you. So much to teach you about me. Will you let me?”

Rey lets out a whiny _yes_ , fingers twitching above her head where he’d ordered her to keep them. Such an impatient woman. He takes pity on her, though, leaning down and nuzzling a nipple with the tip of his nose before taking it into his mouth. He would pay homage to these, they’re so damn perfect.

“Kylo,” Rey begs as he continues his ministrations. When it’s obvious he won’t respond, Rey moans out another name to gain his attention, one he hadn’t expected to hear.

“ _Ben.”_

He looks up through his lashes. She’s lost in her pleasure, eyes closed, lower lip caught between her teeth. “Please,” she pleads, and then it hits him. She hadn’t even noticed.

His lids lower to half mast and Kylo sits up slightly, watching her expression until she realizes he’s no longer latched onto her nipple. Her eyes fly open, the pieces falling into place for her little by little.

“Oh, I—“ she starts, the apology about ready to fall from her lips, but he doesn’t want it. There it is again. The weird, frenzied beating of butterfly wings. Except this time they’re in his chest, trying to outpace his already furious heartbeat. It had been a long time since he’d heard that name outside of Maz, and never like this. Never in that satiny smooth voice, never with so much need, never so intimately, like the first uttered word in a love poem. He should be angry, but instead his pupils dilate until it’s hard to focus on anything else but her, Rey’s face standing in sharp contrast to the blurred edges of his vision as the room falls away until it’s just him and her and his fingers on her naked skin. Kylo swoops in, kissing her with a need he hadn’t realized he’d been holding back. His hands are suddenly _everywhere._

“Say it again,” he says, demanding, no longer interested in keeping up his languid pace as his fingers push at the hem of her jeans, run over her sides, squeeze and knead her breasts like he’d never touched anything so soft in his life. His breathing’s picked up the pace and his airways very nearly ache with the need to bring in oxygen and breathe her in simultaneously. “Please, say it again.”

“Ben,” she half moans, half whispers, finally giving up on his order to keep her hands still and pulling his face towards her so she can kiss him again. He never thought his first name, his _true_ name, could sound so sweet. “Kylo,” she says. “What should I call—“

He chuckles. “Both. None. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want,” he says, tugging her jeans down her hips once she lifts them up for him. “They sound wonderful coming from you.”

Rey gives him a radiant smile, one he’d only seen a few times, and he absolutely _melts_.

“God, I love you,” he says, hardly believing his eyes that she’s _here_ and he’s free to say it, over and over again, so he does. He showers her with those three words repeatedly even as their hands do quick work of getting them both naked as the day they were born, Kylo once more slotting himself between her legs and working her with fingers and mouth and tongue until she’s practically screaming for him over and over and still begging for more. But he has to be sure, so he once again asks her for confirmation.

“Are you sure?” he asks. They had never moved past this point. Past pleasuring each other without going the whole way, and he needs to hear it.

“Please, please, _please_ ,” Rey cries, fisting the sheets and wriggling her body on his fingers as he pumps in and out slowly, fingers hooked and grinding up on that sweet little spot that makes her lose her mind. “ _Now!”_

_Well, who am I to protest?_

He sits back and palms himself using Rey’s slick and his own, holding his breath and marveling at Rey on his sheets, looking desperate and thoroughly pleasured and needy for him, her hair a wide halo around her head as she stares up at him, nostrils flaring and a small frown and the soft sheen of sweat at her brow.

“If only you knew how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmurs, lids heavy and lips swollen from kissing. “To see you like this, open and waiting for me.”

Rey laughs, hands resting on her ribs to try and keep that painful stitch at her sides away from how loud she’d been crying out. “Really? Because you’re taking an awful long time.”

Her laughter is infectious. He can’t help his smile, can’t help the way his fingers caress her thighs, marveling at the miracle he’s been bestowed. Yet… he wants another small piece. Another hit. Another high.

“Say my name again,” he asks, gulping down empty air. Rey smiles.

“Kylo.”

Kylo leans back down, positioning himself at her entrance. “And then the other one,” he purrs.

Rey wraps her arms around his shoulders, rising slightly to meet him so his forehead rests on hers, taking up all of his vision. She says it against his lips, the mingled breath between them holding the single word like a dearly cherished secret.

“Ben.”

He closes his eyes and surrenders, and Rey takes him in, welcoming him home. Every time she says the name it feels like it might just replace a bad memory, ease the sour taste in his mouth leftover from years of hearing it spoken by others. He gives her a moment to adjust, minding his every breath until they’re even and slow as he clings to his composure. Kylo rocks his body once, twice, and Rey’s moan rises up to meet his own groaned pleasure. Despite the ever present tug in his groin that threatens to spill him into her, Kylo takes his time. He wants to savor it, savor her wrapped around him, clinging to him inside her body just as desperately as her legs and arms do around his hips and shoulders. He lets his head droop, peppering her with kisses tenderly at the crook of her neck, whispering her name over and over and how much he loves her.

“You’re stunning, and mine,” he declares not for the first time and never it be the last. Rey once again responds, clearly loving every word down to the possessive rumble in which they’re delivered, and who is he if not a man who wants to please? “You’re _mine_ , Rey Jakken, and I love you, sweetheart.”

The adoring pet name makes Rey whimper, and she tentatively kisses his ear, nipping at his earlobe.

“Please don’t leave me again,” he says, this time more unsure of himself than he’s ever been. He’s not sure his heart could handle it a second time.

“I won’t,” Rey says, panting now from the effort of rocking up to meet his hips.

He wants to say so much more, wants to spend all night praising her, caressing her, but he won’t be able to do that if Rey keeps turning her body that way, the siren’s call too strong for him to resist for much longer. He picks up the pace at her demands until their sweet, slow love making turns frantic and borderline feral.

He claims her in any way he can, nipping and marking and growling, leaving his signature in the love bites at her neck and her breasts and her stomach until Rey’s shaking underneath him. And when she tells him she’s close, chasing her third orgasm, that’s it. He loses all sense of calm, thrusting like a man possessed, one hand flicking and tugging and grinding on that sensitive little bundle of nerves of hers while he swallows up Rey’s every debauched scream until they’re both sweating and spent. Then he collapses on her and Rey lets out a soft grunt, but she refuses to let go, hugging him tighter around the hips and tugging him as close to her as she can afford to, the two of them listening to the other until their breathing synchronizes.

It takes a while to come down from the high. It takes even longer for either one of them to form coherent sentences, but when they finally do, Rey’s the first to laugh.

“That was—“ she starts, panting out the words.

Kylo turns his head, only getting a view of her profile, obscured by her hair, but he doesn’t care much about that minor detail. He kisses her cheek. “Yes?”

That’s when she turns her head and grins at him. “Amazing.”

Kylo grins. “Think so?”

She laughs again, “you’re looking for a compliment.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, then I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean just that,” she says, pinching her nose and looking down it at him. “I don’t know. I may need something to compare it to.”

Kylo arches an eyebrow and she laughs again, so he hugs her closer and rolls them both over, letting her be on top for once as he looks up at her. His disheveled, stunning, beautiful Duckling. His gorgeous _girlfriend_ , now _._ He reaches up as she sits back, gently caressing her cheek with his knuckles.

“Give me a few minutes, then I can give you plenty of source material,” he says with a mischievous smile. Rey giggles and he shakes his head, sitting up so she’s straddling him, cradled against his thighs much like he had the first time he kissed her in this pub.

 

****

 

By the time they’re done that night, both of them are officially physically spent and there isn’t a single surface in this room and the bathroom that hasn’t been attacked. So many lovely memories, he thinks.

Rey is curled up into his side, starting to snooze as he cards his fingers through her damp and quickly drying hair, feeling his own curling around his ears as sleep threatens to claim him as well. He watches her in the moonlight and smiles a sleepy, content smile while she burrows deeper into his side, looking for any and all warmth he has to give. Kylo kisses her forehead, inhaling deeply. His whole body feels… light. Boneless. It’s a great sort of exhaustion. He plans to give into it eventually and join her in her rest, but just as he thinks that Rey has fallen completely asleep, he feels her fidget.

“Kylo?” she asks. She’d cried out _Ben_ plenty of times, but he would probably always be Kylo to her. That had been the name she’d grown used to. Perhaps in time, she might learn to use the other one, and he might learn to accept it fully.

“Hmmm?” he asks, eyes on the ceiling as he twirls a wayward curl between his fingers. She’s still fidgeting uncomfortably, though he knows she’d been plenty comfortable only minutes ago. Perhaps the discomfort is due to something else. He’ll learn soon enough, he thinks.

It takes her a minute before she sits up.

“Where _were_ you going earlier? With your bag, I mean.” She asks, gaze dancing on him, looking for something there. He studies her in turn, memorizing the curve of her waist, the swell of her breasts, the beautiful muscle tone of her slender arms. Kylo reaches up and runs his thumb over her lip. Now that she’s given herself up to him there’s zero shame in her nakedness.

“I was going after you,” he says truthfully. He had been ready to go the extra mile. Millions of miles, if necessary.

Rey’s lips part under his thumb, a soft puff of warm air dampening his finger as her eyes widen with surprise. He sits up slowly, letting his hand fall as Rey continues to search his eyes, and is that a bit of dampness rimming hers? He frowns, tilting his head. “Are you okay?”

“I— what? No. I mean, yes, I’m fine.” she says. “It’s just… No one’s ever done that for me.”

 _Ah_.

Kylo reaches behind her head, tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her slowly closer until her forehead meets his again. She has trouble concentrating on a single eye and he smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges with another wave of happiness.

“You mean follow you to the ends of the Earth for a single, hopeful, beautiful dream?” he asks, knowing she’d done the same for somebody else. How sad, to hear her words now. “First time for everything, duckling.” He kisses her top lip, then the lower one. “Though it’s nothing new. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been trailing after you like a lost little pup since we landed in Cork.”

Rey snorts, then laughs. “I think I was the lost one.”

Kylo hums, smoothing her hair and kissing her again. When he pulls back, she looks a little dazed, a little kiss-drunk. “We both were. I’m glad you came after me.”

Rey grins, throwing her arms around him and tugging him close. “Likewise.”

Her body pressed up against him feels so right, like his other half has finally slotted into place. He hugs her close, burying his face into her neck happily, deciding it could never get better than this.

That is, until Rey wiggles her bottom on top of him.

“Ready for another round? I have much to learn,” she says, dragging from him a startled noise, half snort, half laugh. She’d lost all inhibitions somewhere between their first round and their fourth.

This woman would be the death of him.

Kylo wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is the epilogue, and should wrap up their story (after their reunion) completely like all things should, coming full circle to Rey's POV. But for now, enjoy the post coital feels ;p


	39. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last hurrah.

They find Maz sitting on her porch the next morning, and neither Rey nor Kylo, both walking slowly towards her, their fingers intertwined, seem to be surprised to find her there. Nor are they surprised by the knowing smirk she’s sporting.

“Top of the morning to you,” Maz greets with a smile, one Rey returns happily, unable to keep the giant grin off her face, eyes crinkling at the corners despite the heat she feels creeping up towards her cheeks. Kylo rubs a soft pattern on her thumb as they approach, his hand all but swallowing up hers. “I was wondering when I’d be seeing you.”

“I’m sure you did,” Kylo says, his words laced with humor. Rey steals a look at him, only to find him wearing a twin smile to her own goofy one. “Good morning, Maz.”

Maz cackles, slapping her thigh as if she’s just seeing the most hilarious thing in the world before she gets up - not without complaint about her aching joints - then hugs Rey and gently kisses her cheek.

“Welcome home, kid.” Maz whispers affectionately, before giving Kylo’s free hand a soft squeeze and motioning towards the door. “Come, come. Join me for tea, then you can tell me all about it.”

While Maz busies herself in the kitchen Kylo takes the love seat, pulling her close and instinctively tucking her into his side even as his attention is elsewhere. Rey looks at him again, her smile a permanent fixture, before looking away to the mantel so she’s not caught staring. She’s been doing that an awful lot since she returned the previous day. It doesn’t go unnoticed, however.

“What is it?” Kylo asks.

“Nothing,” she replies, perhaps a bit too quickly. “It’s just… new.”

He smiles that indulgent, soft smile that seems to be reserved only for her, silently planting a gentle, reassuring kiss on her temple. “It’ll be fine.”

Maz walks in with giant, heaping mugs of tea.

“Alright then!” she says, chipper as the shining sun, “How about you start, Rey? I want to know everything.”

“Everything?” Rey asks, already feeling her cheeks flaming up as her thoughts return to the night she’d spent in Kylo’s arms. Kylo smirks but says nothing to help her, and Maz laughs once more.

“Well, not quite everything. But how about you start from the beginning?”

 

****

 

The loft is warm. Not the warmth of a Los Angeles summer, that had thankfully passed months ago, but warm nonetheless, especially after spending so much time packing up boxes all day. Rey looks around the now empty floor, the sun’s gleam bouncing off the perfectly shined wooden floors and chrome accents on the door handles. It’s a gorgeous place. Certainly far more beautiful than her own small apartment in New York had been, far more spacious, with a beautiful view of the wide blue sea.

Rey wipes her brow on her arm with a soft, relieved huff after closing the last box and walks towards the giant crystal doors, stepping out into the balcony and taking in a big lungful of air, a small smile on her face as the sun beats down on her. She’ll miss this place. Kylo’s apartment had been their home for the last six months as they tied up ends in the states — first her own apartment in NYC, which she’d come to learn had ended up in the hands of a new landlord in the wake of Plutt’s arrest for possession of illegal drugs and a rather lengthy list of attrocities involving minors lately. She’d been glad, if unsurprised, though also slightly suspicious that Kylo Ren may have had a hand to do with that. They’d emptied her belongings and handed the keys to Bebe, then taken off for sunny California to tie up Kylo’s business in preparation for their permanent move.

“You sure you don’t want to stay?” strong arms circle around her waist, tugging her closer as Kylo — having approached on very silent feet — immediately wraps himself around her and nuzzles the crook of her neck. Rey smiles. He’d asked that same question repeatedly ever since he’d seen how enamored she’d become with the view.

“Certain,” she says. “I miss Maz and Chewie.”

Kylo hums. “We can keep it as a vacation place.”

She snorts. Only this guy would think keeping a four million dollar condo loft empty most of the year is a perfectly fine thing to do. She chews on her lower lip.

“No,” she says. “But…” Rey stops, wondering if she should ask. It would be a _lot_ to ask.

“Hmm?” he asks, gently nipping at her ear. Rey immediately starts melting in his embrace, her knees wanting to give in already. He’s come to learn every single weak spot, every sensible bit of flesh, and uses it to his advantage.

“Well,” she says, trying to remember what she was supposed to ask. “I hear Finn and Poe are looking for a place to rent, now that they have little Ethan with them, and this place is such a beautiful place. So much space! Would it be possible—”

Kylo smiles, hugging her tighter. It had been a very long year, one with a lot of disputes, and a lot of him pulling strings, but finally they had managed to get the boy away from his horrid, abusive mother and to a loving family, much to the displeasure of his previous coworkers. Rey had disliked the man named Hux on sight.

Kylo nuzzles her neck again, turning her around before planting a soft kiss on her forehead. “You can hand them the keys when we see them again.”

“Really?” she asks, the hope in her voice audible, pitch turning almost squeaky with delight. He laughs.

“Yes, really,” he says, “I’d rather rent than sell, anyway. And I couldn’t think of better tenants.”

The smile trying to split Rey’s face permanently in two is all he needs, and Rey’s cheeks start to hurt from it, but she hardly cares. She throws her arms around him with a happy squeal, and Kylo lifts her up off the floor.

“But first,” he says, “how about one last bit of fun before we pack away the bedsheets?”

He wiggles his eyebrows at her the whole way, carrying her towards the bedroom as if she were his bride despite her mock protestations and peals of laughter.

 

****

 

“Save me,” he groans, entering the kitchen and doing what Rey has learned is Kylo’s favorite thing in the world— he immediately clings to her, dwarfing her small frame as he wraps both arms around her middle and tugs her into him.

“Hey, stop that,” she says, swatting at his hand as it starts sneaking down, trying to not so inconspicuously sneak up the hem of her short summer dress. She shakes her head, feeling his silent laughter as it shakes his diaphragm against her shoulder blades. “What am I to save you from?”

That stops his chuckling immediately, Kylo letting out a small groan. He drops his chin to her shoulder, watching her quietly as Rey ressumes her chopping of vegetables - which she’s now gotten quite good at, thank you very much - and she can see his pout reflected on the glass of the window in front of her.

“They’re driving me insane,” he says. Rey smiles.

“But you’re doing so well,” she praises, knowing that if there’s one way to get him to cheer up, it’s to stroke his ego. “They can’t possibly be that bad.”

“They’re most definitely that bad. My mother’s one glass of wine away from pulling out the baby pictures on me.”

She can hear the laughter coming from the pub floor where her boyfriend’s parents now sat, chatting away with a boisterous Maz at the dinner table they’d arranged, having closed the pub for the evening. It had been a long year, but something must have eventually changed Kylo’s mind, because Rey remembers how astonished she’d been when _he_ had suggested one night that perhaps it would be a good thing for his parents to visit. Rey had stared at him dumbly as he proposed the invitation, his eyes glued to the dish he’d been preparing as he mumbled the suggestion.

“I want to see those!”

“Don’t you dare,” he growls in her ear, “or you’ll be paying for that tonight.”

“Is that a dare?” she says, immediately feeling her stomach growing hot, but Kylo only pulls the knife out of her hand and sets it aside, turning her around before locking lips with hers, effectively silencing what she was about to say next. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he lifts her up, sitting her on the edge of the counter and slotting himself between her knees, kissing her until she’s a little dazed.

“A promise,” he says, pulling away and staring at her lips. “I’ll even up the stakes if you save me now.”

She giggles. “You’re the one who invited them.”

“Yes, yes,” Kylo grumbles, “But Maz is only egging them on.”

“Come on, they’re trying so hard, give them a chance.” Rey swings her legs at his side, smiling when he once again tries to sneak his fingers up her skirt. “Now let me down so I can finish this. Could you grab that fruit tray? Poe and Finn will be here soon with the others. Is your uncle joining us for dinner?”

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” Kylo says, pulling her off the counter and placing her gently on her feet, “Luke’s not particularly fond of crowds.”

Rey smiles. She had met the old, graying man a handful of times already. Luke was a kind, patient, loving man even if he seemed a little jaded around the edges, reminding her a bit of a monk in more ways than one. She’d quickly learned to love the old man, but she could see why he’d been so quick to leave the pub in Kylo’s hands and run off to the mountains, his eccentricities growing with age.

“Well, at least your parents finally came to visit,” she says, smirking at his suppressed groan and wondering if she should push her luck just as they exit the kitchen. Rey lets her voice lift just a bit higher, garnering the attention of her guests. “I am sure those baby pictures of yours must be absolutely adorable.”

Oh, she pushed her luck. Kylo glares at her with a burning promise that she’s going to be paying for this later, which she’s definitely looking forward to, as Leia, who had immediately taken to Rey as one would a lost relative, pipes up with a sly smile that she certainly has some she could show.

“Oh, I bet he was so cute,” Rey teases and Leia laughs, and she can tell how much Leia loves her son in the way her eyes twinkle, sighing contentedly as she takes a far away look, ready to start with the storytelling.

“Very, you should have seen his pudgy little legs and round bumcheeks—“ Leia gets cut off by a laugh from Han and a much more audible snort from Kylo. Rey looks at him and smiles, then grins at Han, her cheeks coloring. It’s hard not to when one of your living legends is sitting across from you at the dinner table, laughing as you joke with his wife.

Kylo’s watching her quietly from his chair, arms crossed, but she can tell he’s not mad so she mouths _I love you_ over Han’s chuckles and Leia’s shoulder, and the small, indulgent smile that graces his lips is everything she had hoped for.

Not long after that Finn and Poe arrive, with a small Ethan in tow, Bebe and Jess - a now very pregnant Jess as she clings onto Mario, her fiance - bringing up the rear.

“We brought dessert!” Finn announces once pleasantries have been exchanged and introductions made, the last of which take a bit longer than she expected as Finn immediately takes an enthusiastic liking to Han. Rey had nearly forgotten how much of a fan he was as well. Finn smiles like an idiot for the rest of the evening over that, which helps, because Kylo and Finn are still not quite the best of buddies, Kylo never quite having gotten over what he claims to be _Finn’s stupid handling of the situation_ as if Kylo hadn’t benefited from it, and Finn still pursing his lips at that mean joke Kylo had played over the phone once. Despite that, they managed to get along, and were doing better with every meeting. Han’s presence just buttered it up a bit, if only because Kylo got a whole lot of amusement out of watching Finn smile like a school girl, and it kept his father off his back. He gets on much better with Poe, simply because they’re closer in age and it’s hard to resist Poe’s charm no matter what team one swings for.

Dinner comes and goes in a whirlwind of laughter and playful chatter, a lot of which is spent trying to guess what Jess’s baby will turn out to be, boy or girl, and Jess basking in all the attention even as she tries her best not to look at the food on the table ‘lest she get sick again.

“Well, whatever it is, as long as there are ten fingers and ten toes and the baby is healthy,” Mario says in a rare occurrence in a thick Spanish accent that makes anything he says sound entirely too sexual. Poe had been slowly breaking him of his shy habit of remaining silent, goading him into conversing in Mario’s native tongue while everyone else attempted not to smirk at the combined hitching up of room temperature at how the language sounded. Poe’s a lucky man that Finn isn’t the jealous type.

“Hear, hear!” Finn says, lifting his beer bottle and enticing everyone to drink to the happy couple, the golden wedding band on his finger glinting in the light. Jess grins, lifting her own glass of lemon water, before grumbling about it.

“Hopefully next time we toast to this brat in my stomach I’ll be able to do so with something _really_ worth drinking,” she grimaces all the while affectionally patting her stomach. For all the tough talk, Jess is already head over heels for her baby. She sighs. “And back to work. I can’t wait to get back to work. I will lose my mind if I have to sit at home with my legs up longer than necessary. Also, I can’t wait to get rid of being sick at everything I smell.”

Everyone around the table nods in commiseration, even if none of them except for Leia truly understand Jess’s plight yet. Mario gently rubs Jess’s back, leaning in to kiss her temple.

“Didn’t you just get promoted?” Rey asks. It had been a while since she’d spoken to her friends. Jess gives a giant grin while they listen to Finn chasing Ethan around the house, telling him to stop digging into the dessert already.

“Yep. Took over Poe here’s position now that he’s taken Kaydel’s spot,” says Jess, eyes glinting with pride. “Even if it leaves significantly less time to spend working in the wedding planning section. Though I might make an exception, yes?” she says, waggling her eyebrows.

Rey frowns, but when everyone turns their eyes on Kylo, forcing her to do the same, Rey finds him with the beginnings of a minute smile on his face.

“Actually, now that you mention it,” he says, pushing his chair back ever so slowly. The room quiets, Finn with his arm around Ethan’s shoulder at the door and a grin on his face because he knows what’s about to happen. They all do. All of them except Rey, who’s watching her boyfriend take slow steps around the table until the puzzle pieces start slotting in place: his parents visiting, her friends — her _family —_ coming over, and the reason why he’d been so dodgy for the last so many weeks about her doing some spring cleaning and getting into things she’s not supposed to. Her heartbeat slows, then hiccups, when he comes around and slowly drops to one knee.

Rey watches stupidly, trying her hardest to even out her breathing as Kylo grabs her hand and kisses her knuckles, smiling against them while digging into his pocket with his free hand.

“Rey,” he says, pulling out that tell-tale little black box and opening it up to her, a beautiful ring inside with the most brilliant heirloom sapphire she’s ever seen ringed by beautiful, sparkling diamonds. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She stares at the ring, blue as the sea she’d fallen in love with, as the color she’d picked for their walls, the same ring she’d stared at once while on a shopping outing and Kylo had noticed her doing so. Then she looks up at him and she forgets about the color blue when met with the most beautiful gold-flecked brown of his eyes, a hopeful smile on his lips and love in his gaze, and Rey practically flings herself into his arms, stopping shy of tackling him to the ground as she squeaks out her response.

“Yes!”

****

 

That night, after everybody’s in bed — they _do_ have a bed and breakfast, after all — and Rey and Kylo have spent themselves with their quiet lovemaking, Rey crawls up on top of Kylo and peppers him with well earned kisses all over his neck and collarbone while he hums and runs his fingers through her hair and down her hip.

“Thank you for the surprise,” she says, giddy still. Kylo chuckles and kisses her temple affectionately, hugging her closer.

“Glad I could surprise you,” he says, eyes closed and words dragging with quickly settling sleep.

“I have a surprise for you, too,” she says, nuzzling his neck. Kylo sighs, leaning his head to give her more access, happily tugging her closer in the circle of his protective arms.

“Hmmm?” he says, barely managing words as sleep starts to claim him. The smile she’s been wearing all night widens as she leans in and kisses his earlobe, running her fingers through his hair and deciding to give _him_ a surprise worth opening up his eyes for. She hadn’t broached the subject yet, wondering how she should, but after the events of the night, she’s only too happy to break the news.

“I’m three weeks pregnant.”

 _That_ gets his attention.

 

****

 

“You look stunning, Mrs. Ren,” Kylo says as he slowly guides her along the dance floor, her fairytale wedding well under way as people dance and laugh into their champagne, lazy moonlight glinting off the lake to one side and the large ruins of her favorite castle making a breathtaking backdrop for the night.

Rey runs her fingers along the soft hairs on his arms, staring up at him. He’d finally shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, relaxing into himself after the dinner. “Even with the baby bump?” she asks, grinning.

“Especially because of the baby bump,” he says, running gentle fingers along her slowly swelling stomach. “All that pregnancy glow or whatever.”

Rey snorts, throwing her head back and laughing. Kylo grins, leaning in and burying his face in her neck, uncaring of who’s watching. She’s his, and in his eyes there’s only her.

“Well, you’re as handsome as ever,” she says, running her hands through his hair, deciding she likes it when it’s messy and tangled in her fingers.

“Why, thank you, I was wondering when you’d notice,” he teases, kissing the crook of her neck where it meets her shoulder, making her shiver. “If I remember correctly, you couldn’t see it for the longest time.”

“Bah,” Rey says, smacking his giant shoulder, knowing how much it does for his ego just saying the words nonetheless, because they’re true. “As if you really believed any of that. You’re hot and you know it. Everyone’s eyes are always on you, myself included.”

Kylo looks up and smirks down at her in that infuriating way that makes her knees go weak.

“Good thing I only have eyes for _you_ , Duckling,” he says, confirming what she’d known for a long time. “The ring on my finger says so.”

“I didn’t know rings could talk.”

“They can’t. I’ll just have to show you instead,” Kylo winks, leaning in and dipping her for a kiss that sends the whole place roaring with applause, catcalls and cheers, simultaneously stealing the breath out of her. When he rights her, then leans down to also kiss her growing tummy, Rey’s eyes start to fill with happy tears. She found love where she hadn’t ever dreamed she could, and if the tender, worshipping touch of his lips to her midsection are any indication, she found what she’d come searching for to begin with. A family.

 

****

 

Maz is the first person to hold her child, even before Kylo, as she tells Rey to breathe, that she’s delivered a bouncing baby boy. She slowly places Rey’s screaming child in Rey’s open, waiting arms and gives her a bright, tired smile that nonetheless brims with pride before leaving to give them a moment while Kylo runs tender fingers through her sweat-slick hair. It had been a very long, exhausting night. She looks up at him, feeling the tremble of his fingers against her scalp as he stares at the bundle in her arms, looking both relieved and alarmed.

“You want to hold him?” she asks, a little out of breath, and the alarm on his face grows.

“He’s so little,” Kylo says just as breathlessly, his anxiety at holding such a small thing in his giant hands written all over him even as his fingers twitch with desire to hold onto his son. Rey grins, offering him up slowly, then closes her eyes when Kylo finally settles with his baby in his hands, holding him as though he were made of the most precious glass.

“Should we call him Anakin?” Rey says. They had discussed the matter of names over and over, but seeing as Rey had no father figures in her life for whom she would have liked to name her child, in the end she thinks she’ll be happy with any name, since it would be the name of her son. Kylo looks up, blinking. She knows how badly he wanted to include his loving grandfather’s name in there somehow, even if he tried to suppress that desire whenever they discussed names out loud. “He looks like an Anakin to me,” she continues.

The smile that splits Kylo’s face is one she’ll remember for a very long time yet.

“Yes,” Kylo agrees above a whisper. “Yes, I think he does, too.”

Maz comes back, smiling warmly at them both, a curious look on her face when she finally sees Kylo holding onto baby Anakin. She leans against the door frame, a hand to her heart, and sighs happily before moving forward and claiming the baby.

“Come on, boy,” Maz coos. “Time to bundle you up and get you ready for mommy and daddy, yes?”

Rey watches her leave, knowing she would never be able to trust somebody as much as she does Maz with her child, then turns to her husband. He’d been staring at his now empty hands.

“Do you think I’ll be a good dad?” Kylo asks, more to himself than anything, and Rey finally grabs his hand and tugs him close, bringing his knuckles to her lips and giving them a gentle kiss. He’d spoken at length about his fears of being like his own father, but now he wears his insecurities on his sleeve.

“You’ll be the best of fathers,” Rey promises. “Just like you’re the best of husbands. Your past doesn’t have to be your future, you know?”

To this he finally relaxes, crawling up in bed with her, uncaring that she’s still not quite clean from giving birth before Maz has a chance to shoo him out later.

“No, I suppose not.” He whispers against her forehead. “You changed that for the better.”

 

****

 

Maz never gets to hold Rey’s future children. When they put her in the ground next to Chewie and her late husband three years later, Rey feels her heart break and a part of it is buried with the woman who had quickly become her mother, a month into Rey’s second pregnancy. Yet she still hears Maz in the way little Anakin laughs, sees her in the mischief he’d learned from her, when her baby boy remembers Nana Maz’s cakes and tells Rey he misses them. She especially remembers that beautiful woman as she watches Anakin running around the flower garden. They had inherited Maz’s home, and her garden continued to bloom more brightly than ever, as bright as their previous owner and caretaker.

“Watch your step, Ani!” Rey calls in a huff from where she sits on the porch, Maz’s old hanging place, shifting uncomfortably on the swinging loveseat. She should be due any day now, but carrying twins is no joke. Anakin only waves at her with an impish smile and returns to doing exactly what he’d been doing, which is to not listen to her as he hops large stones and gets himself dirty from head to toe.

Rey hears the door open, this time more silently than before, and Kylo steps out to hand her a giant mug of tea. Rey makes a face at the lack of caffeine but accepts it nonetheless with yet another uncomfortable shift, sighing into it as Kylo takes a seat next to her, gently placing a hand on her knee.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his eyes falling to her ballooning midsection. “Should I call a doctor?”

“No,” Rey smiles, patting her belly then using it as a rest for her mug of tea, “we’re just fine.”

They would be fine for another two days. Two days later the twins decide it’s time to make their grand debut.

 

****

 

Finn and Poe move to Ireland the year after because Finn misses Rey and Poe is a sucker who’d do anything for his husband. Also because everyone collectively agrees that Ethan, Anakin, and the twins Jacen and Jaina could use having the close-knit family support, especially after Ethan starts complaining that he misses his cousins. They settle in Dublin so that Finn can continue to write and Poe can find employment, but this way the whole family can meet at least monthly instead of every other year, all without breathing down each other’s necks, which is a compromise everyone can live with.

On one such occasion, Finn and Rey sit side by side on the porch, watching with indulgent smiles as Kylo and Poe roll around in the dirt with the children, Kylo getting caught in a surprise attack from Ethan and Anakin while Poe plays on his hands and knees with the toddlers. Rey sighs, leaning her head against Finn’s shoulder, who promptly reciprocates by placing his head on hers.

“We did good,” Finn says. Rey laughs.

“Yes, we did,” she pats Finn’s knee, her eyes never leaving her children. “How are the adoption proceedings?”

Finn groans. They’d been trying to adopt a little girl named Candice for about a year now. “We’re being put through the seven rings of paperwork hell, but it’s going. We should hear pretty soon, I think.”

Rey grins at the obvious yet resigned annoyance in Finn’s voice. It’s hard to get him to that point. She pinches her nose then pats his hand.

“I can’t wait to meet her. Tell me a bit more about her.”

That’s a sure fire way to get Finn to forget his annoyance. The second he starts talking about little Candice there’s no stopping him, his eyes lighting up like he’s looking at fourth of July fireworks as he launches into a breathless tale of all of Candice’s latest escapades since their last visit, gushing about her freckled cheeks and burning red hair.

Good. Rey couldn’t bear to see her best friend unhappy.

“Though we’ll have to move, I think,” Finn muses after twenty minutes. “Our apartment might not be big enough.”

“How about you guys move closer?” Rey asks, ears perking up. “We could use help running the pub?”

“Really?” Finn asks, turning to look at Rey. It would be a dream come true, really.

“Yeah!” she says, “I can talk with Kylo but, I think so. We were thinking of giving it back to Luke, what with having so many kids and this house now, but if we could get people to help us run it…”

The next year, Finn and Poe move into the pub, now with a little Candice in tow holding onto Ethan’s hand, and Rey’s family is finally all in one place.

 

****

 

On their twentieth anniversary, Rey wakes up to the smell of rain and freshly cut grass, taking a giant gulp of air from her porch. The house feels emptier now, with Anakin having moved to Dublin for school and the twins still asleep. She hears steps from behind her and smells the sweet, glorious smell of coffee, only to have a cup of her favorite brew put under her nose as he leans in to kiss her cheek.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he says. Rey grins, leaning into him and sighing happily.

“Good morning,” she replies, leaning into his hug as he wraps her up in his arms from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder. “Happy anniversary.”

“And you, love,” she receives a kiss to the neck and sighs happily, drinking from her cup before leaning her head back to rest on his collarbone.

“Ben?” she asks, using his name as she only does in private, when all her guards and his are down. To the rest of the world he’d always be Kylo, but for her, and only for her, he’d allowed himself to be Ben.

“Hmmm?”

“It’s been twenty years,” she says, feeling her stomach fluttering just the same way she had on her wedding day.

“I’m aware,” her husband chuckles, “my joints never let me forget it.”

And that is the truth of it, she thinks. They’re getting old. They had already buried too many friends, Kylo having to bury his parents one after another after such a short time of having put the past behind them. He still hates himself for that, though Luke is always quick to remind him that his parents loved him. One day they would have to bury old Luke, too, but Rey refuses to think about it. It makes her too sad.

They’re getting old, and while growing old had never felt this sweet, as the years pass and her home starts to empty, first with Anakin and soon with the twins, Rey starts worrying that time is slipping by. She’d had this conversation with him, already. Rey sets her coffee on the porch railing and turns around, cuddling up in his arms, clinging onto him as if afraid to ever let go. He knows what she’s thinking. He knows her as well as she knows herself, sometimes better. Kylo nuzzles his wife and gathers her closer, resting his chin on her head.

“We have all the time in the world,” he says, as he’s said often before.

Rey hopes so. Through it all, despite the fights and the hardships, the tough times and the great times, she’d always had him. Rey can hardly imagine a time when she didn’t, those days long gone, hanging onto her memory like a soft summer haze, yet content in her lover’s arms, their spark never fading despite twenty years. They got through life with a burning love for each other that refuses to fade, and when burning love wasn’t enough, they carried on with Maz’s words in the back of their heads. Maz’s advice had been the best wedding present of all, bestowed upon them long before they ever said _I do_ , and they still live by them.

 

****

 

Jacen and Jaina leave the nest and Rey finds the house dreadfully empty, though not for very long. Soon enough Anakin breaks the news. He and Candice are engaged. Kylo claps his son on the back with all the show of a proud peacock, telling Anakin it was about damn time he proposed. Her oldest child had found himself falling for Candice a few years earlier, now that they were no longer tooth-gapped, lanky children any longer, and, much to everyone’s relief, Finn and Poe had been perfectly okay with them dating.

 _Couldn’t find a better boyfriend, if you ask me_ , Poe had said with a smile, though Finn had been very quick to give said boyfriend the mandatory _talk_ , Finn being the ever protective father that he was. A few weeks later they were all once again gathered to celebrate, and Rey makes sure to engrave every second of it in her memory.

 

****

 

On their fiftieth anniversary, Kylo and Rey renew their vows. The years have passed by quickly, leaving them both grey and well loved as they place rings on their fingers and kiss just as lovingly as if they were still newlyweds. Around them gather her children, and the first of her grandchildren, as Kylo spins Rey around the dance floor with care, giving her that same infuriating smirk she’d fallen in love with. She cries that night, though they’re tears of happiness.

“Shhh, sweetheart,” Kylo murmurs into her ear, wiping away her tears as he pulls her close into their dance, wrinkled, rough hands tracing circles on her back and arms that had once been strong clinging to her with a different kind of strength. “We have all the time in the world.”

It is not longer after that, after his eighty-fourth birthday, that she buries him.

She cries, and cries and cries, for the love of a man who gave her all and the fact that he’s no longer there, even as her children do their best to console her through their own grief. Her grandchildren become her sense of strength, and she finds herself devoting all she has to them. Ten in all.

At night she goes to bed alone, clinging onto Kylo’s pillow and whispering her sweet nothings to the air, hoping that, somewhere, he’s listening. She dreams of train tracks at night, of umbrellas and rain, of beautiful brown eyes and luscious locks of jet black hair, and the echoes a booming laugh that wake her up shivering. On those waking mornings she’s both devastatingly happy and overwhelmingly sad. He’s come to greet her, she thinks, come to say hello in her dreams. She relishes those dreams for years to come, staring at the pictures on her mantel with a bittersweet smile, until the years wash away the bittersweetness and all she’s left with are the gentle memories and a ghost of longing. Life moves on, though her love is forever frozen in time in those picture frames.

So many years, so many memories, lovingly framed and kept without a speck of dust. Her children’s smiles through the years, then her grandchildren’s, and above all, his smile. _His_ smile. That smile that still makes her heart melt even when he’s not there. Rey thumbs one of them gently, pulling out her wedding ring from the chain around her neck and staring at the bright sapphire. This ring would go to Jaina someday, but for now she wears it next to Maz’s, having long replaced it with a simple golden band on her wrinkled hand. Rey sighs, thumbing the diamonds, then stares at Kylo’s photograph. In it he’s got his giant arms around her waist, grinning into the camera while Rey sticks her tongue out at it, his old Ray Bans shoved up in her hair. He’s all bad boy and devilish charm, legs spread out on either side of her as they sit on the cherry red hood of his Camaro.

“I miss you,” she whispers, “every day.”

She sighs. She’s old now. So old. Moving is getting difficult. She thanks her lucky stars she managed to stay relatively healthy, but almost eighty years tend to take their toll on a body. Rey thinks that soon, soon, she will probably welcome death like an old, dear friend. Soon she’d get to see her love again, and as for her, Rey thinks she can do so without fear.

 

****

 

“Come on, duckling, open your eyes,” he says, and Rey’s eyes open slowly.

She can’t see the people around her, though she hears their voices. She had lost her vision slowly, but surely, and now they’re blurs in her peripheral. Yet she sees _him_ , in all his glory, hair tousled and shining and full, as if the years hadn’t touched him.

“Ben?” she asks, and he smiles, finally accepting his name fully and giving her the brightest, warmest welcome in response to it.

“Ben,” she repeats, though her words are failing her. Her family gathers around her, her children, and her grandchildren, one of whom is now holding onto the first of the third generation bundled up in her pink little blankets, crowd closer. They can hear the whisper of a name. A few ask who Ben is, and Anakin smiles, a weathered, tired face crumbling with pain.

 _Ben is my father,_ he says, explaining the whole story behind it.

“You came back,” Rey says, trying to reach into the air to hold his haloed hand. “You came.”

“Always, duckling,” Kylo says, moving closer, grabbing her hand to aid her. It suddenly feels light again, and young, no longer weighed down by age and pain. “Always.”

“You came back for me,” she repeats, awed. She had missed his face, and his voice, and his smile. She had missed his eyes and the twinkle they held, and now here he is, calling her that old pet name and grabbing her hand. A tear slips past her eyes, down her cheek, and it is Jaina who wipes it away, though Rey barely notices.

“Of course I would. I’ve been following after you for years. Did you think I’d stop now?” he laughs, his eyes wrinkling at the edges, though everything else is soft and smooth and perfect. He tugs her closer and Rey goes with, the lightness in her growing. It feels like taking a breath of fresh air after too long inside a dusty room. She laughs.

“I missed you,” she says, and he kisses her cheek. “Are you staying?”

“No,” he says. “No, I’m afraid I’m not.” When she looks sad, he laughs. “I came after you. How about it? Another adventure.”

And just like that, Rey remembers she’s dying. Her eyes flutter and she hears her kids in the background, even though her vision is all taken up with _him_. She feels Jacen’s soft hand in her hair, Anakin’s and Jaina’s hands holding her own. She can hear her grandchildren milled around her. The family she wanted. The family _he_ gave her. She remembers she’s dying, and she smiles. He came back for her.

“Will you be there?” she asks, though the words are a slow dying whisper. Kylo grins, squeezing her hand as the light starts to take over.

“Always. We have all the time in the world now.”

His smile could light up a room. He moves, her fingers securely laced in his own, and Rey smiles, only giving one last glance behind at her family before giving in.

Where he goes, she follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END. 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> PARTING WORDS
> 
> Ah... here we are at last. It's bittersweet and I won't lie and say I didn't cry. But we're here, after all that, and here concludes Rey's story, for it was her story from beginning to end. I hope the ending did it justice.
> 
> I just want to say thank you to all of you who supported this crazy rollercoaster, to those who started reading when it began and stuck it out with me until the very end, and to those who gave it a chance at any given stage and stayed through it all, and more specifically, to those who took the time out of their day to comment here. Your words kept me going during the dry spells, inspired me, motivated me, and generally made writing this thing one of the most enjoyable experiences for me. I doubt it would have been finished had it not been for you. To those who gave this story kudos (you managed to get it on the first page of the results, in the top ten, too! thank you! If you got this far and liked it, give it one, will ya?) and bookmarked, shared with friends, hyped it up, made fanart and aesthetics and playlists. This story is as much yours as it is mine.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @lucidlucy for more writing updates and other SW nonsense.

**Author's Note:**

> For more updates and SW nonsense, follow me on tumblr over at @lucidlucy.


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